I don’t want to tell names or give too much descriptions but I have seen a video of a real challenge and it didn’t turn out as most people would have expected it.
A BakMei master (from China), having an old reputable school in a town in the US, was faced with a challenge by a new instructor (also of a southern CMA, but the guy himself was American) and also just moved to that town to start his very first school.
As promotion to his new school, the new instructor started to sell demo videos, and some of these were purchased by the students of the BakMei school. The BakMei master and his students viewed these tapes, titled them ‘useless’ and ‘fake’, and they returned them for refunds, commenting that this is nothing of use.
The new guy went over to the BakMei school and challenged the master and asked him to show the superiority of his art and teach him why his skills are ‘useless’. The master first didn’t want to accept the challenge but after a few minutes of talk, he finally did.
The fight began (three matches according to old Chinese traditions), no rules were defined, no protective gears were used. Right away the new instructor started to beat the daylight out of the BakMei ‘master’. As the fight went on, the new guy was just literally throwing the BakMei master around like cat playing with a mouse. The BakMei master showed ABSOLUTELY ZERO skills, looked as if he had never even heard of martial arts before. The only single shot the master got in is when they new guy turned around and let him get up from the ground and the master took a cheap shot at him from behind! This was the only shot the BakMei master was able to get in. The new guy, on the other hand threw him all over the school and punched and kicked him many times.
After seing this tape I have certainly redefined my concept of whom I now call a master: the one who has PROVEN himself as such, not just running a school and teaching an art but actually KNOWING and BEING ABLE TO APPLY what he is teaching. Everybody nowadays is a ‘master’ and make good living from the beliefs of unsuspecting students. I’m more of a traditional artist but I do give credit to sport fighters in that they actually have to show what they know and there can’t be as many fakes as in traditional arts.
What do you guys think about this subject? Do you also just belive someone is skilled because he/she teaches an art? I think the above incident is very uncommon, when two actually got to match their skills and it became obvious who knew what. So how can you distinguish today between a real master and an imposer?
someone can be a good teacher without being that good of a practitioner. obviously, the practitioner has to have some skill/experience, but an expert teacher does not default an expert practioner…and vice versa.
i heard an interview with joe lewis (bruce lee’s student) the other day, and he said something that really made me think. he said that bruce lee had all the attributes to be a great fighter, but bruce was more of a teacher than a fighter. at first, i couldn’t swallow that.
but then he said of people like chuck norris and himself and mike stone (all fighting champions of their day) that they trained to be fighters - they prepared for fights constantly, by fighting highly skilled fighters all day long every day. bruce wasn’t doing that. he asked bruce why not, and bruce wasn’t interested in that. but he loved working with joe because he could use him as a guinea pig to test out the theories in the ring.
so joe concluded with that bruce lee was an incredible teacher/mentor, but he wasn’t a fighter, although he had all the right attributes to be an incredible fighter.
I would like to see the Bok Mei tape! And can I get a private message regarding names, dates, locations…please! post the link! or put it on the web! That’s a great story!
FIrst of all I think everyone is missing an important point…keep your mouth shut and do not say ****ty things about others! Things like this could be avoided.
Secondly…to answer your question I guess it all depends on what you consider a true “master” to be? I have met many high level players that are not interested in fighting, and vice versa. Everyone has their specialty and what not. And to top it off, it could have been a bad day for one guy or another! Everyone has a bad day. Everyone loses once!
Interesting story though.
please post the video clip, or dub it and pm me and I will buy it from you, your post it and im sure we will all drop 5 bucks each in a pay pal account to see gong sau…thank you
FIrst of all I think everyone is missing an important point…keep your mouth shut and do not say ****ty things about others! Things like this could be avoided.
david: i don’t think jake was saying ‘bak mei is crappy’. jake was alluding to the bak mei 'grandmaster’s comments that the new guy’s arts weren’t good.
jake was saying we should all know when to shut up and not provoke a situation by action or word when it can be avoided. a sentiment which comes from a japanese master who reflected in his later years that most of the problems (in feudal society) can be avoided if use of force is avoided and compulsion by coercion practiced instead.
in fact, anonymous forums have little to do with reality.
in further fact, we don’t know if a lick of this is true and in fact, jake could himself just be another troll. who knows?
the whole story could’ve been laid out without the mention of systems at all.
and besides, martial artists have it within their natures to goad or be goaded by other martial artists. If there wasn’t this flaw in our personalities, we wouldn’t bother with learning how to beat the crap out of people who do percieved wrongs.
we’d just be peace loving yoga and qigong hippies. which a lot of martial artists are anyway, but that’s another side.
I believe the Bak Mei master in this case is at fault. So it would be impossible to sympathize with his handling of the situation.
The said master IMHO A) has no idea of how MA business has evolved. B) He properly still stuck in the old paradigm of excellence in performing oriented art would translate equally to performance oriented art. C) He is too arrogant to remember or recognize how tough it was to build a reputation and it was built (I would hope) on blood and sweat. D) Clearly he is not a tactician in anyway. He could have steered the situation to a win win situation but I suppose his ego get the better of him and now his status is in decline and his career might be jeopardized.
Well, can’t said that I am sorry for the guy because of the way he handled the situation.
Sadly, it’s a trend, Chinese masters talking badly about competitors in the privacy of their schools hoping no one calls them on it… well, at least this guy agreed to fight, I’ve seen many tuck tail and run when confronted directly about their crap…
Why is it so surprising that a Pak Mei “master” was beaten??
Do you really think the style is so invincible?
Mantis 108, wouldn’t tradition would have the challenger fighting at least the Dai Si Hing before he gets a chance at the teacher. Possibly a couple of others as well depending of the attitude/skill of the younger brothers in the school. (trick is to wear him down..)
Just to be clear, Yes, on face value, it appears his mouth wrote a cheque his arse couldn’t cash…plain and simple.
I’ll see if I can find out more…name of the City would be helpful…to the best of my knowledge there aren’t any CLC Pak Mei “Masters” sharing time between the US and China.
Many of you were asking for the clip. Sorry guys I do not have a copy of it, the tape was brought into our school by someone and showed to the entire class. We viewed it several times and analyze it. The ‘new instructor’ was actually somewhat related to our school, he had studied there for a short period of time.
'Why is it so surprising that a Pak Mei “master” was beaten??
Do you really think the style is so invincible’ - Yum Cha
Come on Yum Cha, you’re missing the point here. The focus of the message is not on the style, it’s on the title: ‘master’. That is why at the end I mentioned that so many martial artists call themselves masters yet don’t have any practical skills.
I agree 123 (yutyeesam), a good instructor does not necessarly means a good fighter too, but up to that day the concept ‘master’ to me was defined as someone skillfulled in his art. A good instructor should be addressed instructor and not master. Maybe I was wrong about this concept that is why the clip had such a shocking effect on me.
Also agree with those of you saying the master deserved what he got. He talked crap about others, he had to stand up for his words and he lost. I’m sure he lost a lot of business after the incident but he asked for it himself.
Actually I will start a new thread with this but I have read many more ‘masters’ get into the ring with Muay Thai fighters and were beaten in no time. We will discuss that next. I have some pics of these fights, but I’ll have to find them.
another round of rehash of the old story in which the “HK team” went to thailand and got their clocks clean. but, seriously, can someone tell us the “records” of these so call HK Masters. better yet, how highly rank they are in the HK MA communities? or are they a bunch of guys who thought this was a great publicity stunt which severely back fired?
those hk guys weren’t pro and they went to fight pro fighters who do ring fight for a living. nuff said.
Your point is not lost on me, though perhaps I wish it were. I can’t say nay to the point you’re trying to make, cause I know about “inflation”. I know Pak Mei suffers from Crippled Children, Dead Style, and more…
I thought my comment was properly “framed” by the goofy smiley face next to it…
I still reckon you should give out some more information about the Pak Mei “master”, especially since you have a vested interest, being related to the Challenger in question.
well that’s great jake, except you cannot dictate what people should or should not do. You cannot provide any evidence that what you are saying is true at all ergo, you yourself are talking trash in that context.
just pointing it out. I could care less either way. I think that quite a lot of what’s called martial arts these days is pure crap anyway. Who cares about people that are full of themselves want to talk crap about another guy that are full of themselves.
Hey…enough Jibber-Jabber! Let’s go to the clip! Can someone post this thing? I don’t think anyone cares about ‘what style’ they do or did. Let’s just see someone getting a taste of some 'humble pie."
