Martial Arts/Combat Sports Fraud Stories

I have another one! When I was practicing Whin Chun years ago, my Sifu had a coffee table in the foyer covered in the typical awkward Martial Arts magazines and poorly produced Martial Arts literature you can expect. Among them was a little in-school mag entitled “An Everlasting Pilgrimage” by a guy from the UK who ran his own school back there.

“Grandmaster Sijo Sid Sofos” blew my mind with the bullshit he wrote in this mag and it distressed me that such ridiculous shit was in the vicinity of my school. Please have a look at the link I posted below that describes his school as a cult. Also have a look at the pictures that have been scanned in the article from his booklet. Under one picture of this fat fuck jumping maybe two feet the caption explains how he “gathers his chi the springs to the height of 8 feet hanging in the air for a whole second”. Other claims include being able to move butterfly knives so fast that they disappear or catch fire and being able to read minds.

http://www.detoxorcist.com/cults-sid-sofos-andrew.html#andrew

You can’t find a better combination of phony martial arts poser AND irresponsible, abusive and plain bad instructor. WHat I know is that he may have fallen off the grid because of such bad press he has recieved. His brother, equally deranged is still running a school in the UK. But his critics are also still ;posting hilarious rip off videos on youtube.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Sid Sofos…

EDIT: I just found his site, and all the bullshit that lies therein!!!

http://www.fatshanmartialarts.com/

I think this dude did the intro on some of Wu Tangs albums…lol

Also,personally, I think if you are not in asia and your uniform only contains words written in kanji you are a fraud. I have often wanted to start a group called “Unko Kusai” only write it in Kanji and see how many people would wear it around because it looks cool. Then like a few months later tell them it means shit smell or shit stank and enjoy the reaction…

Wing Chun schools tend to be McDojos. In europe there are a couple of “lineages” that seem to exploit people while not teaching them a thing that is handy in a real situation…

Ladies and Gentlemen, a Wing Tsun Worst of:

They actually claim to pin down wrestlers with their Bullshdio!

Here you can see how they steal their ideas from other Bullshido styles. Amazing

Dear God! Ok pigeon, you win this thread.

That guy (and his brother) are the types of frauds who give martial artists a bad name. I mean, I’ve seen some really hilarious “martial arts demonstration” videos on youtube, but to then read about how abusive these guys are to their students and former students puts them in a special class of scumbags.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the Whin Chun that I did and I learnt a lot of valuable concepts that followed me to boxing, Muay Thai and grappling. However, although my instructors where all terribly talented in Whin Chun and a few other styles, they were just to absorbed by the esoteric aspects of martial arts. And although my Sifu was a very strong sanshou competitor and trainer, he sometimes sounded plain crazy.

However, perhaps his absolute best student ever was a multiple heavyweight Sanshou champ, and went on to founding one of the most popular and successful MMA and boxing gyms in my country. I eventually started training there and his success and down right badassery was only spurred on to greater things by his foundation in Whin Chun.

In the end, just like Bruce Lee did, those of us who saw where the usefulness of Whin Chun ended where able to leave and make continued progress elsewhere.

This Sid Sofos guy though… Just a muppet honestly and if you take look at some of the more recent you tube videos of him, he’s basically just a fat fuck now.

[quote]Quiet Warrior wrote:
Wing Chun schools tend to be McDojos. In europe there are a couple of “lineages” that seem to exploit people while not teaching them a thing that is handy in a real situation…

Ladies and Gentlemen, a Wing Tsun Worst of:

They actually claim to pin down wrestlers with their Bullshdio!

Here you can see how they steal their ideas from other Bullshido styles. Amazing


From what I understand, Sid Sofos uses or used emotional and physical abuse to forge loyalty and obedience among his students. Apparently when he was unable to break boards or execute his “no touch KO” he would berate and sometimes attack the students. I imagine that this is more or less the method that many “No touch KO” Senseis use to almost force their students to fly across the room when they get “hit”. And I imagine that the bald twat in that last Systema video does the same. I wonder what is going through the minds of his students whenb he brushes them lightly and they fling themselves across the room. Is it, “My God he’s thrown me with the lightest touch” or is it “My God, why am I here? What am I doing?”

If it wouldn’t result in an assault charge, I think more legitimate martial arts practitioners need to challenge these buffoons to competitions with whatever rules and have at them.

And to further the discussion about these phonies using cultish tactics to train a certain repsonse in their students, I remember this documentary on NatGeo about George Dilman. This guy couldn’t be more of a fraud and I think in other threads in the combat forums he’s been discussed enough.

At about 4:00 minutes into this video, the narrator points out that skeptics think dudes like Dilman, Sofos, whoever, are simply using hypnotic suggestion and causing pyschosematic responses in the victim of the no touch KO attack. Of course in an “unbeliever” it simply doesn’t work.

Watch the fraud Dilman, try to weasel an excuse out at the end. Kinda sad actually, considering he really was a talented martial artist long before he started down the rabbit hole.

[quote]Quiet Warrior wrote:
Wing Chun schools tend to be McDojos. In europe there are a couple of “lineages” that seem to exploit people while not teaching them a thing that is handy in a real situation…

Ladies and Gentlemen, a Wing Tsun Worst of:

They actually claim to pin down wrestlers with their Bullshdio!

Here you can see how they steal their ideas from other Bullshido styles. Amazing

Lol! I was literally in tears laughing at that second video.

The first one looks like some kind of rave gone wrong.

I can’t figure out the deal with Systema. I mean, the Spetznaz were a legitimate special forces group for one of the most powerful and hardcore governments in the world (at the time); You’ve gotta imagine that whatever they learned in terms of unarmed combat was legit. I mean, the USSR was such a force in terms of wrestling, gymnastics, Olympic weightlifting, and so many other sports at the time; why would they teach their elite soldiers esoteric nonsense? These guys showing this so called “Systema” have got to be just posers, capitalizing on the name, but with none of the substance.

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:
From what I understand, Sid Sofos uses or used emotional and physical abuse to forge loyalty and obedience among his students. Apparently when he was unable to break boards or execute his “no touch KO” he would berate and sometimes attack the students. I imagine that this is more or less the method that many “No touch KO” Senseis use to almost force their students to fly across the room when they get “hit”. And I imagine that the bald twat in that last Systema video does the same. I wonder what is going through the minds of his students whenb he brushes them lightly and they fling themselves across the room. Is it, “My God he’s thrown me with the lightest touch” or is it “My God, why am I here? What am I doing?”
[/quote]
I believe they think the latter… Wile most martial arts frauds are bad at anything like practicing styles or techniques, they are extremely well rounded in the art of setting up contracts that wont make you leave their place for the next 2 years…

This is so ridiculous… These days all you need to open up a martial arts gym is paying money to the state, so that you are officially an organisation (no matter how small) and “creating” your own style by basically hacking apart a couple of bad Wing Chun videos.

It makes me sad and angry at the same time.
So many great organisations and so much potential ruined for the sake of money and reputation.
Personally I would not recommend anybody to join a Wing Chun Class with instructors from the Leung Ting Lineage… go with the Lok Yiu Fun or Wong Shun Leung stuff. It’s solid and easy to learn Wing Chun. Forget about any style in Wing Chun that overemphasizes those flowery partner drills or claims to have answers for any kind of attack. As soon as you leave the beginner stage chi sao and other important drills should not be a matter of looking good in slow mo but rather a matter of effectiveness.

The Karate “Master” obviously stole a couple of his “chi gathering” drills straight from Qui Gong. :slight_smile: Take a closer look at the kids hands at 1:50, this is a technique where you imagine the energy to be a ball between your hands. Usually you don’t do this out of the blue, it takes about 20 minutes to “raise your awareness” to the level where you can actually feel something. But it’s all bullsh*t.
True “Chi” or “Ki” whatever you may call it is nothing more than exceptionaly good control of your muscles. No mystical power or style can give you that -only hard training can.

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

Lol! I was literally in tears laughing at that second video.

The first one looks like some kind of rave gone wrong.

I can’t figure out the deal with Systema. I mean, the Spetznaz were a legitimate special forces group for one of the most powerful and hardcore governments in the world (at the time); You’ve gotta imagine that whatever they learned in terms of unarmed combat was legit. I mean, the USSR was such a force in terms of wrestling, gymnastics, Olympic weightlifting, and so many other sports at the time; why would they teach their elite soldiers esoteric nonsense? These guys showing this so called “Systema” have got to be just posers, capitalizing on the name, but with none of the substance.[/quote]
I totally agree with you on the second video showing the true abilities of this grandmaster.
In this video he demonstrates his amazing sticky hands to a complete Wing Chun Beginner. An amazing display of speed, elegance and power irony
http://play.kendincos.com/15835/Wvzjnjnhljndhdhfjfj-bad-day-of-leung-ting-wing-tsun.html

Well it’s not the first time somebody is trying to make money by using the reputation of a bunch of extremely tough people. I ve seen a couple of videos from “Russia Today” where Spetznas recruits are practicing what looks like a mix of jiu jitsu, judo, Kickboxing, and various close combat weapons techniques. No esoteric Bullshido about mind control and no touch kos. Im sure these guys dont even need that kind of crap…

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:
And to further the discussion about these phonies using cultish tactics to train a certain repsonse in their students, I remember this documentary on NatGeo about George Dilman. This guy couldn’t be more of a fraud and I think in other threads in the combat forums he’s been discussed enough.

At about 4:00 minutes into this video, the narrator points out that skeptics think dudes like Dilman, Sofos, whoever, are simply using hypnotic suggestion and causing pyschosematic responses in the victim of the no touch KO attack. Of course in an “unbeliever” it simply doesn’t work.

Watch the fraud Dilman, try to weasel an excuse out at the end. Kinda sad actually, considering he really was a talented martial artist long before he started down the rabbit hole.[/quote]

Yeah, Dillman is up there with the most recognized frauds in the martial arts.

Grandmaster Lewis once challenged him to use his “no touch KO skills” while Lewis would use his skills to see who would KO who first. Dillman declined the challenge. :slight_smile:

“Take a closer look at the kids hands at 1:50, this is a technique where you imagine the energy to be a ball between your hands. Usually you don’t do this out of the blue, it takes about 20 minutes to “raise your awareness” to the level where you can actually feel something”

Good Lord, what crap.

Since this thread is still well and sparking, I thought I’d add my all time favourite. Yellow Bamboo.

[quote]SBGuerrilla wrote:
Since this thread is still well and sparking, I thought I’d add my all time favourite. Yellow Bamboo.

yellow bamboo - YouTube [/quote]

Hahaha Emperor Palpatine would be proud!

[quote]SBGuerrilla wrote:
Yellow Bamboo vs reality - YouTube [/quote]

Dude is wearing a black shirt. It obviously negates the power of yellow and screaming.

Oh man! I would love to sneak into a Yellow Bamboo meeting with a yellow TShirt on and smoke those guys one by one. There would be a lot of screaming, for sure.

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:
Oh man! I would love to sneak into a Yellow Bamboo meeting with a yellow TShirt on and smoke those guys one by one. There would be a lot of screaming, for sure.[/quote]

Lol. Well if you ever do, please be sure to have a friend also sneak in to video the beatdown(s) so the rest of us can enjoy the fun. :wink:

I’ve always been a big boxing fan so my friend and I taught ourselves how to box in the basement, studying fighters and mimicking sparring etc. I started going to a mma gym and sparing boxing only with a pro fighter and some of the other people there he had been training at the time. So i’m sitting down as the karate class that was taking place was finishing up wrapping my hands and just soaking things in, this kid whom at the time probably had like 20lbs on me sits down and starts bragging to me about how two nights before he’d been in a bar fight with 6 other guys. He ko’d all six of them and of course didn’t break a sweat. I figured i’d probably have to spar with him, so I was slightly hesitant, I had a really solid chin but after all I’m just a self trained dude goin up against what sounded like a real beast. Onc we got the gloves on the guy didn’t even know how to throw a punch, he was slapping at me. I was shocked, I always could take a solid punch without wavering much but this guy literally hit like a girl. I’ll never forget it.

Stopped boxing training converted to some powerlifting and years later i’m at a bar with a guy I work with and one of his friends. We were about 10 minutes from Jon Jones hometown watching his fight vs. Rashad so of couse everyone at the bar was in theor tapout clothes being a badass. My co workers buddy always talks about how he wants to compete mma and he’s gonna win the belt yadda yadda was going off to us about how all the tension in the air he just wanted to ko someone. After hours of listening to him run his mouth I picked out a guy whom looked like he knew how to defend himself and told my coworkers friend he should probably go take that guy out. My coworkers buddy cowardly avoiding any part of him sat there with his dick between his legs. Haha all talk, for the better though, I wouldn’t have been to happy if he actually started a fight and got us kicked out.

[quote]behexen wrote:
I’ve always been a big boxing fan so my friend and I taught ourselves how to box in the basement, studying fighters and mimicking sparring etc. I started going to a mma gym and sparing boxing only with a pro fighter and some of the other people there he had been training at the time. So i’m sitting down as the karate class that was taking place was finishing up wrapping my hands and just soaking things in, this kid whom at the time probably had like 20lbs on me sits down and starts bragging to me about how two nights before he’d been in a bar fight with 6 other guys. He ko’d all six of them and of course didn’t break a sweat. I figured i’d probably have to spar with him, so I was slightly hesitant, I had a really solid chin but after all I’m just a self trained dude goin up against what sounded like a real beast. Onc we got the gloves on the guy didn’t even know how to throw a punch, he was slapping at me. I was shocked, I always could take a solid punch without wavering much but this guy literally hit like a girl. I’ll never forget it.

Stopped boxing training converted to some powerlifting and years later i’m at a bar with a guy I work with and one of his friends. We were about 10 minutes from Jon Jones hometown watching his fight vs. Rashad so of couse everyone at the bar was in theor tapout clothes being a badass. My co workers buddy always talks about how he wants to compete mma and he’s gonna win the belt yadda yadda was going off to us about how all the tension in the air he just wanted to ko someone. After hours of listening to him run his mouth I picked out a guy whom looked like he knew how to defend himself and told my coworkers friend he should probably go take that guy out. My coworkers buddy cowardly avoiding any part of him sat there with his dick between his legs. Haha all talk, for the better though, I wouldn’t have been to happy if he actually started a fight and got us kicked out.[/quote]

It is my personal opinion, that 85% of UN-TRAINED males are delusional in their perceived ablilites and live within a Walter Mitty complex.

I’d actually bring that up to 95%

Everyone, particularly men, have a tendency to overestimate their physical ability and/or survival skills.

I was a boy scout for a brief period of time. That made me realize that I would not be able to survive for very long out in the wilds. Survival skills are definitely not something you are born with, and you most certainly do not pick them up in just weeks, let alone months.

And practicing judo against black belts who literally throw you like you’re a rag-doll really puts a dent on your feeling of superiority.

I think people really need to put themselves into a situation where they’re just fucked. It REALLY gives you perspective.

Funny story regarding this sense of overestimating - On another forum that I occasionally frequent, which caters towards an activity that most people here would probably call nerdy and as such the average people there would not be particularly athletic or fit, someone made a thread of what would happen if a grizzly bear set out to murder your ass. Amazingly, a good third of the people who responded thought they would at the very least kill or manage to run away. One even responded that he would be able to take the bear out with his halberd. Another said he’d be able to kill the bear by shoving a knife through its eye.

That made me laugh quite a bit.

[quote]magick wrote:
I’d actually bring that up to 95%

Everyone, particularly men, have a tendency to overestimate their physical ability and/or survival skills.

I was a boy scout for a brief period of time. That made me realize that I would not be able to survive for very long out in the wilds. Survival skills are definitely not something you are born with, and you most certainly do not pick them up in just weeks, let alone months.

And practicing judo against black belts who literally throw you like you’re a rag-doll really puts a dent on your feeling of superiority.

I think people really need to put themselves into a situation where they’re just fucked. It REALLY gives you perspective.

Funny story regarding this sense of overestimating - On another forum that I occasionally frequent, which caters towards an activity that most people here would probably call nerdy and as such the average people there would not be particularly athletic or fit, someone made a thread of what would happen if a grizzly bear set out to murder your ass. Amazingly, a good third of the people who responded thought they would at the very least kill or manage to run away. One even responded that he would be able to take the bear out with his halberd. Another said he’d be able to kill the bear by shoving a knife through its eye.

That made me laugh quite a bit.[/quote]

LOL…nice, killing a grizzly with a knife through the eye…thanks , best one yet.

On another note: I have actually had a few guys tell me (new ones looking to train) of their skill in playing games like “Halo” or “Call of Duty” as if that would would transfer over to the real world of combat training. Amazing and sad at the same time. If I had not heard them explaining this convoluted sense of skill, I would have never believed it.