Greetings folks that are interested. Below is an email I received today from Joe Schaeffer (sp?) in Austin (I’m still on the SD mailing list). Thought I’d share it…
The facts
When I make a mistake, I try to be the first to admit it. Well I made one today and I feel I must come clean with ya’ll. Someone walked in last Friday to the South Austin school and issued a challenge to Jordan Scharf, asking to fight Matt Southard because my brochure said that he was a good fighter. Well Jordan acted perfectly and flat out refused to have anything to do with this person. Then I received an email from a message board moderator the following day that someone was talking badly about us and I might want to look at it. He added that in regards to the challenge he respected our refusal and that I was to be commended for teaching my people restraint. It was amazing, people from all over were backing OUR actions in the matter. (I have some hope for our youth)
This person claimed to have bested (owned) our entire school (North and South) because he said that we were afraid to fight him. Mind you, I was ready to ignore this silliness, but then he began emailing me issuing a “friendly” sparring invitation at his school in South Austin. I told him that we need to prove nothing and that a challenge was out of the question.
This is when I made the mistake. I told him that if he wanted to come to the North Austin School sometime, I could arrange for him to Spar the “fearsome” fighters in question in a friendly match. To my surprise he asked what day. By this time I was already too deep. So I pushed as hard as possible for the “friendly” angle of the interaction.
Well tonight he visited the school with 3 other friends, ready to find out if we were worthy of his “OK” to his buddies on the internet. The following is an accurate and first hand account.
Sifu Paul Davis was the first to spar him. This person said that he wanted no groin contact and only light head contact. However, since he was a JiuJistu grappler, the light head contact that Paul made was completely ignored. Paul had his own plan and wanted to grapple with him and beat him at his own game. Paul gave it a great effort and escaped many holds, but was eventually tapped out.
Several minutes later, Sifu Corey stepped up. By this time it was clear that this person wouldn’t acknowledge pulled strikes, so Corey landed about 20-25 strikes to his head (about 50% contact level). Corey had soft sparring gloves on and still did a lot of damage to this guys face. Yet, this person still insisted that the fight was not over. He could not submit Corey on the ground and landed not one significant strike the entire time. Corey proved himself to be the fantastic martial artists and gentlemen that he is. He asked, “what do I have to do to say that I won this fight. I do not want to beat this guy any bloodier.” It became like the first Rocky movie at some point, with him refusing to quit. Finally, one of this person’s friends and our own Sifu Karl called the fight over, and in Corey’s favor. It was plain to see, and this with Corey pulling his kicks to the head and striking with only 50% power to the head through soft gloves. Corey’s and Paul control and restraint were incredible and they did every one of you proud. But from the moment I allowed this nonsense into the school I knew I made a mistake. I thought that somehow we could have a civil interaction with this person, and learn something about each other’s style in the process.
Unbelievably, this guy walked over to me at the end and said, “well you’ll be happy to know that I’ll be giving you a good report online”. To which I replied, “wow that really puts my mind at ease”.
I promise each of you that we will not allow this to happen again. Even though my intentions were to have a sparring interaction, I am now inspired to create a code of ethics for my instructors that prohibits anything like this in the school. The entire event was disgusting and beneath us, therefore unworthy of our conversation hence forth. I only tell you about it here, because you’re likely to hear some version. It might as well be the truth.
On a final note, I would like to ask a big favor of everyone in the school. If you visit message boards to discuss our school, you are doing me, Grandmaster Sin, and our art great disservice. I never have seen a meaningful discussion or exchange about this topic online. I will patrol the boards if necessary to see if my students are on them. I wouldn’t ask this favor unless I thought it important.
Tomorrow, let’s all get back to what we love. Training!
What message board’s posts started all of this?
While I respect his perception that most of the message board discussions about SD devolve into something less than meaningful, I have participated in several that I feel has helped my understanding of SD, my understanding of SD’s perception by others, and has improved my training and helped me make wonderful contacts across the country. I disagree, then, that these discussions have been a disservice to GrandMaster Sin The.
I have a couple of comments - First kudos to the guys who sparred, period. I don’t think there is anything shameful in sparring or meeting a challenge match, and sometimes as martial artists, I can’t see a reason not to meet them if someone challenges you. I know all the legal crap, and am ok with that.
Sifu Paul Davies should not have tried to play the guys game however. First rule is make them play your game in your territory, he got ****y and go tbeat.
You don’t go into someone’s school, ask to fight a challenge, and then say “I want light head contact.” You can’t accurately gauge a striker’s ability to stop you unless you let him strike you.
I can fully understand not going full tilt on one another. The problem is, grapplers usually have no problem going 100% on you once they get you on the ground. So, the ten or twelve 50% hits I landed before that don’t matter much to them because they got the tap anyway.
But, yeah, putting a guy’s name in your brochures and touting him as a great fighter is asking for trouble.
video…sweet.
MK has taken the correct and denied the 50% sparring by busting its face with a 150% punch.
When you have “So-and-so is a great fighter” in a brochuer your asking for trouble. Hell, when me and Shake used to talk Martial Arts at parties with our buds, if a MAist was in earshot he’d come over and question us or ask to spar sometime. Its the in the Martial Artist psyche to want to test other styles so you can gauge if the guy is fulla B.S. or if he could be valuble to your training. I met a couple BJJ cats who I was going to spar with but relocated to the moutains before I could capitalize.
We had a BJJ guy visit not long ago. First thing my master did was have him extend a locked arm to demonstrate the power he can issue from contact… then they played.
To the guys credit, as soon as he shot and my master’s hand touched his head the guy stopped cold and didn’t move a muscle till my master withdrew his hand. This happened several times and the guy was a real gentleman.
General rule, though, if you’re man enough to issue a challenge be man enough to accept the conditions: no fooling around.
PS
That is part of the business of saying, “I’m a pretty good martial artist, so good in fact I’m going to open up for business.”
It’s not big deal for martial artists to be fighting with each other, just like two good chess players will want to play each other to find out who’s better. The guy that knows he’s so much better and will win views it as no big deal. These instructors I’m sure find no big deal in playing with yound, novice students.
At what point do you become uncomfortable? There’s your ceiling. We all have one.
I think personally this was a great exmaple of some guy, who instead of going along with the crowd and making assumptions about people, decided to get out and to test himself and them as well, to find out for himself what the deal was. If more martial artists did this I think some of the fighting would go away.
I think personally this was a great exmaple of some guy, who instead of going along with the crowd and making assumptions about people, decided to get out and to test himself and them as well, to find out for himself what the deal was. If more martial artists did this I think some of the fighting would go away.
Na…He gets props for fighting, but read the other thread he started. He talked a lot of shiznit about the SD people and figured it was going to be a cake-walk. Now, he’s being all humble about it because he got his nose busted.
But you’re right. Putting on gloves usually stops all the mouth-fu.
but that’s what I’m saying. There are a lot, as a matter of fact, most of them out there smack talking it up with no real experience on the subjects they are speaking of, shaolin do is a good example. This guy however, backed up his talk with action. It doesn’t have to get ugly but if a martial artists wants to understand another style/artist/school, he needs to go visit and stop the chatter.
No real integrity/ just covering ones behind.
When I make a mistake, I try to be the first to admit it.
Yeah right,like the mistake YOU made when you backed out of supporting MY challenge to someone constantly badmouthing SD here on THESE boards? the MIstake of revealing that you have no integrity to support your DEDICATED DIsciples who BUSTED THEIR A$$ for you for 7 years?
He added that in regards to the challenge he respected our refusal and that I was to be commended for teaching my people restraint. It was amazing, people from all over were backing OUR actions in the matter. (I have some hope for our youth)
OH give me a freakin Break,people from ALL over? yeah maybe your OWN students in your OWN MC franchises from ALL over:rolleyes: ( i have some hope for our youth):rolleyes:
I am now inspired to create a code of ethics for my instructors that prohibits anything like this in the school. The entire event was disgusting and beneath us,
This is the real funny part of the whole email,what this tells me is that far be it from the precious franchise to be jeopardized by accepting challenges and either getting defeated or branching out in to the REAL world of shaolin and be exposed for the frauds you people really are. Code of ethics my A$$,what ethics are those that allow a fabrication of history and lineage to be perpetuated for 20+years?(oh excuse me lets be PC about it, ALLEGEDLY Fabricated lineage and history?:rolleyes:
I am so sick and freakin tired of Joe Shaefers High and mighty attitude,they can all go take a flying fuk in to the river as far as i care.:rolleyes: :mad: :o
not so peaceful right now,,,TWS
yeah, I thought you’d get a kick out of this WS 
I still wanna see the video.
I read thru 10 pages of Bullshido junk & still saw no vid link…
****… I too am insterested in the video.
I read 10 pages of that monotonous B.S. as well…and came to relize THERE WERE NO CLIPS. Needless to say I will check back occasionally to see if the clips are ever posted…
There were no clips because it just happened. There’s lots of video. Give it some time. How many of you actaully know how to take a video, convert it to digital, edit it pulling out relevent clips, format it into .mpg or quicktime and find a place to upload them and get a link out there.
And if you actually HAVE done all that, how long did it take t get it all done?
Keep yer panties on guys.
approx 4 to 5 hours depending on the length of clips, software being used and speed of the computer.
It would take me a week minumum. Maybe 2.
It would take me at least a week to find someone with the right equipment. And then another week to find 4-5 hours of spare time. That would include installing and learning the software and shopping around for a place to upload the clips. I have no webpage. I am a computer technician but for some reason have always been baffled by the fairly user friendly world of HTML. Final Cut I can do. Heck I used to build Avids for TV stations in Hollywood. I’ve set up office networks on several occasions in various configuratoins.
But ask me to put together some online video clips and I’m lost…go figure. I guess I just have a blind spot there. 
all for a good report online? :rolleyes: