Dojo Challenges

ShoriKid · Orange Belt

Like a lot of things in the martial arts, I'm of two minds about this matter. While I was the first student up to spar with anyone that came in new, that was often for the safety of lower ranks. Given that I have a hard head, and not enough sense to know when I'm hit, I was a good canidate to see if someone had come just to try to beat up people at our dojo. Not saying I was a great fighter able to take on all comers, but I would give a good representation of our school. And there were one or two people who wanted to come in and prove that their training was superior to what we were doing and that our dojo couldn't turn out fighters. One of the other local schools circulated that rumor around, that none of us could fight. The man who took over teaching when their head instructor took over ended up a good friend of mine. We trained together for a year, at which point he was a Ni Dan and I was about 5th kyu. He complimented me on my ability, saying I did well for my rank when we sparred. He eventual came to train with us and ended up making it to 1st kyu before he had to stop due to life happening. After sparring the instructor he laughingly confessed that all the things he'd heard about our instructor were wrong.

That is how our 'challenges' seemed to happen. People came in to train, but most had prior training and had heard we were a soft school that just did kata and basics. They came to train for a bit, fight and go away with bragging rights that they had beat up our people. That is how a lot of modern 'challenges happen. They aren't as often walking into the door and calling a show down with the ehad instructor. It's a safer way for the challenger really. If they get beat up/lose the fight, they just say they were there to learn. If they dominate any of the sparring, they claim victory and superiority in style/ability. Going to others schools and trying them out is great. Don't go into a long term commitment on a contract, but sample things to see what they have to offer. Go and test yourself, not the other people if you think they are reputable.

On the old school challenge where you come in and put it to an instructor, fight or be labled inferior. It just doesn't seeme to work any more. Not really. The instructor has a lot more riding on the line than the challenger. Not just losing, but winning. If they win in this legtious society, what are the odds, if it's a dominating win, especially by someone in a striking style, they face being put out of business financially. It's some of the same reasoning why sparring contact levels are curtailed so much in a lot of schools. There is also the facing of differing rules sets, which inevitably favor one fighter or the other. This is due to their familiarity with the rules and having trained with them. If you fight a certain way, your better at it than someone who doesn't. Put a judoka up against a karateka and have the rules not allow throws on the hard floor and only a single follow up strike after an opponent is downed and the rules tilt in the favor of the karateka. Doesn't mean he will win, but it makes things easier for him. The same can be reversed as well.

Do the old school challenges have their uses? Philisophically, yes they do. They unmask the people who don't have the skills that they claim to have, when they are done correctly. I'm all for getting the low quality instructors, or the charletains out of martial arts. However, as often as not it's a 25 year old from a grappling school or mma gym heading down to take on the 35/40 year old guy who teaches karate at the local dojo 2 nights a week. That is as much a match of physical attributes, if not more so, than style. And a lot of these types of challenges aren't really done to expose fraud. Not a lot of the ones bragged about across the internet, or filmed for YouTube. It's more about the ego of going out and beating someone for the bragging rights than proving that a teaching is inferior. It's personal gratification. That is where it goes wrong and missed the point that established the tradition or challenges, and yes it's a long tradition in both the Eastern and Western martial arts.

So me, I'm for old school challenges, and mordern methods too. And, I'm against them too. In this case, I want to have my cake and eat it too.
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bushido_man96 · KF Sensei

Nice post, Shorikid. Thanks for sharing your experiences. I wish that I had more schools available here, not to challenge, but to go experience and learn from, and make new MA friends.
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