Hannibal! If it's not my mortal enemy turned MAP friend! Long time no see ..... How are ya? I have been away from MAP some time now, and it does my soul good to see a flame war on a thread I started over two years ago.
Other than pending surgery for a double hernia I am doing tickety-boo old chum! Are you staying around or just dropping in?
I think I can give it another try. Some of the good folks that I enjoyed posting with were banned (go figure) and things were getting kind of slow on the TKMA forums. Good to see you're still here though! I know all of this is off topic so I shall return to the topic in question: I have actually heard from some friends that this Jae fellow can be a nice guy and the rumor is that he is a competent hapkido man. I know of some great, and quite famous martial arts leaders that have misrepresented themselves and their art ..... Perhaps this gentleman just isn't quite as good with the tall tale as others?
He should have just stuck with the ol' "been trained by blind hermit monks," or the time-tested "my art is 5,000 years old" stories.
Being a nice guy does not make someone a competent martial artist. Being a competent FIGHTER does not mean that one can claim rank in an established art, especially one with a short enough history that any and all claims can be easily traced (e.g. Judo, Aikido, Krav Maga, Hapkido, etc.). And I am not sure that some of us would classify someone who intentionally misrepresented his or her training and lineage as a "great" martial arts leader. Again, I am not questioning the man's ability to fight. That is not the point in this discussion. The point is simply his claims to very high ranks in an established martial art that has a short enough history that records exist, and the man refuses to disclose his lineage.
The real issue here is that if someone is a 10th dan in anything, "competent" should never be an appropriate adjective used to describe their ability. They should be a sensational martial artist that might come about once or twice per generation in an organisation spanning the entire globe. For example, in Judo there have been 18 promotions to 10th dan recognised by the International Judo Federation, with only an additional 5 promoted to this rank worldwide by their governing bodies. That's 23 Judo 10th dans since 1882 when the art was founded, and for a sport which is practised in pretty much all countries. None of the judo 10th dans would ever be described as merely "competent".
This post should go into; http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116166 I agree with the semnatics of "competent". The problem with some people starting their own school, especially those who desire to develop their own art, is that they want to appear to be more qualified" then what they really are. The get caught up with title and rank. Simply, they are "not competent" if they lay caim to being a 10th which they maybe a 5th (and that's being generous) The improper manner of thinking: a 5th dan is high qualifiying, so a 10th Dan should be double that
i'd add the the kodokan has even less. 15. except for the fact that you have to be alive to advance rank, i doubt anyone would contest if shiro saigo, yokoyama, or tomita were given posthumous 10th dans. there is even an argument for maeda. 2 of the ijf promotions seem political as some other deserving judoka like draeger, kawaishi, kimura (who introduced judo to france), tomiki (aikido fame) were passed up. it is rare in the judo world to find someone objectively rating the skills of palmer or kerr similar to geesink.
Hello all, I will address all of Thomas' issues after I get to the Dojang, but since its come up already, understand I have the greatest respect for Thomas, and know that our online debates are done with tenacity, but in friendship. That is true with everyone, but someone mentioned our posts specifically.
Hello all, I just spoke to Joannie Wollmershauser, concerning any rank that Jae Jeanotte would have received. The answer as far as she knows and can recall are none. Certainly not a 5th dan or any higher rank, and if he got a lower rank, it appears it was through another student and not directly from Master Wollmershauser.
I think all this bickering about rank and titles is ridiculous! After all, The original founders of martial arts hundreds or even thousands of years ago had no rank and created their own movements on their own with no actual teacher. We as martial artists are suppose to show humility and respect to others and with all this crap going on in the martial arts it makes people not want to start training in martial arts. After all if someone is not legit they will soon fade away. You all have your own opinions but I think we should respect one another and start acting like True Respectful Martial Arts Practitioners and take care of our own backyards before treading on another. Take care and God Bless!
Respect is earned and if you are a paper tiger and full of self importance and crap you deserve to be called on it - if you are a fraud you deserve to be exposed as such and respect be damned
The original teachers were battles and fights - those who started surviving battles and fights regularly while defeating others began codifying what had worked and analysing how to do better, gradually moving from students of battle to teachers of battle techniques. The majority of new "grandmasters" today have no such experience whatsoever, so when they make up a new style they are only drawing on what they have learned up to that point, which is regularly a fairly low grade in another style. We've all seen examples of the first dan who creates a new style and promotes himself to 10th because of that fact - they may feel entitled to the grade, but if they genuinely believe that they have reached the epitome of possible skill in their style (which is what such a lofty grade should indicate) then this would imply that the intervening grades are generally utterly worthless, as that 10th dan who has only achieved a legitimate first dan should be significantly better than a 5th dan - that 5th dan therefore presumably has less skill than the average high kyu grade. Ultimately such a system dilutes any meaning originally associated with the grading system and removes actual ability and dedication to training in the art for decades as a requirement for obtaining those high grades. Without those and without a tried and tested approach that beats other fighters, what is there left for a grade like that to actually mean? We see this a lot, and the concept of humility is supposed to apply when we learn from someone, i.e. we are not supposed to assume that we know better than our instructor and should listen to corrections with that in mind (unless the instructor is clearly useless, in which case we don't keep them as an instructor). Respect is for training partners and other members of the same school, and the idea is to show mutual respect while training in something that can cause harm or kill to ensure that all participants remain mostly healthy in spite of rigorous training. At no point is there any requirement to show humility and respect to over-ranked individuals passing themselves off as legitimate grandmasters or experts. In fact, our own self respect as martial artists should make us unwilling to allow this kind of behaviour. I doubt the internal squabbling of martial artists will have much of an effect on people's decision to train. Even if they do, then if a potential fraud is identified and discussed, those potential students at least have some warning that not everything is above board when making their decision as to whom they should study with. Information is good. This is demonstrably false. Dillman and all his "No Touch Knock Out" posse still travel the world demonstrating their completely disproven techniques to audiences of well-meaning and well-paying martial artists. Hopefully they're doing a lot worse than they could be had they gone unopposed, but if that sort of stuff doesn't fade into obscurity over time then there's no way that massive over-ranking would vanish in complete absence of any criticism at all. "True Respectful Martial Arts Practitioners" as you seem to imply above are exactly how frauds thrive. The idea that someone should be automatically accepted no matter how laughable their claims is not a tradition of martial arts at all. In fact, before modern times someone known to be teaching rubbish would be publicly challenged and sent packing. Modern times mean that such individuals no longer have to face such challenges, so a lot more rubbish goes unchecked, which leaves the average martial artist far worse off.
If you peruse the posts in this thread from 5/13 you'll note that the only two other posts on MAP by Dojunim were here-the content of which makes it seem the call for "respect,humility,"etc in the post to which you just replied is simply yet another individual invoking such ideas in defense of their teacher.(When all else fails,get MORAL!). :zzz:
I can understand why - the facts don't make for good reading, so appealing to altruism and a misinterpretation of the principles of martial arts is really the only option.
