I was out behind my school training 2 days ago when I smelled cigarette smoke and I turned around to see a woman standing about 5 feet behind me staring at me through a chainlink fence. She says to me"i was wondering what you were doing over here, you’re doin’ that karate". I did not have the patience to explain that it was kung-fu. Then staring at me puffing away on her cigarette she says"i can break a board in half with my foot". She then waits for my response, like Im supposed to be excited by this information. I just said “ok”, then looked at her. This is why i try not to tell anyone about my training. I just try to keep it between myself and school. My mother still thinks Im learning Tai-Bo. Anyone else have this feeling?
All too often thats why I try not to tell anybody I study martial arts. But sometimes it just slips out.
When I was 14 I started my training at the golden dragon society. They had awsome black silk jackets with embroidered gold dragons on the back and arms. I just had to have that jacket so my mom bought it for me and I couldnt wait to wear it every where I went.
Well I found out that by wearing that jacket was like wearing gang colors and every where I went people would want to pick fights with me simply becuse I advertised that I took kung fu.
In the mall, school the movies it didnt matter but for some reason by wearing it made people challenge you. I got into many fights becuse of it and one fight it ripped. I was so mad but then after not wearing it i realized that I didnt have to prove myself anymore.
Now 21 years later, when someone asks if I study anything I always reply… I know a little…
haha, i know how you feel, dragon! i was getting my hair cut the other day and unfortunately, the person cutting my hair likes to talk (unfortunately b/c i like to get my hair cut with as little talking as possible, i’m quiet :)), and one thing led to another (…get your mind out of the gutter!) and we were talking about hobbies and whatnot. so i say i take kung fu, and i was thinking about shaving my head so i don’t sweat that much, then she’s like “yeah that’s what karate does to ya, makes ya sweat a lot!” so i corrected her saying it’s kung fu, and again she says something else and calls it karate! this makes me nuts…
another example is when i/my parents have company over or something and my parents blurt out that i take kung fu, the everybody asks these HORRIBLE questions about it…ughh it makes me nuts! i know i shouldn’t expect these people to actually know ANYTHING about martial arts, but their ignorance is definitely starting to get to me!
AND DON’T YOU HATE WHEN PEOPLE WAVE THEIR HANDS AROUND IN ATTEMPT TO IMITATE MARTIAL ARTS AND MAKE BRUCE LEE SOUNDS?!!!
sorry, this subject makes me a very bitter person hehe.
-matt
How do you think i feel, i study Bagua and Tai Chi every day in a course. I train for at least four hours a day.
Try telling someone you have just met that!
What you do you do for a living?
I study.
What do you study?
errr kung fu!
Kung fu!
Yeah kung fu!
So um what can you do with that then - teach i suppose?
Do people really need to learn that stuff?
Come here ill fu*-ing show you!
Not to mention the millions of elderly people who stop to tell me how ‘relaxing’ what im doing looks when im covered in sweat and clearly exhausted.
Or there is having to explain to people how ive gone though several martial arts and ended up in Tai Chi. Yeah its REALLY easy to explain why Tai Chi is a better fighting art (for me) than Karate was 
Or maybe trying to explain why i dont use tension in my Bagua movements but my Hung Ga does…
Im thinking of running up a pamphlet and just handing that out:rolleyes:
or better yet, there are some nobs at the mcdojos in town who think wing tsun is crap and make fun of it because it LOOKS FUNNY. not because they can beat it, but because it looks funny.
oh, if i had a nickle for everytime i wanted them to throw a jumping crescent kick to test me, i’d surely have a lot of nickles.
oh well. what’s worse is that the better part of me feels bad that these nobs think that when they meet steroid lad at the clubs they’ll able to defend themselves, so i can’t even find any satisfaction in their misplaced self-confidence.
****. :mad:
I had one Guy come over tell me that my Yoga is quiet impressive.
:mad: :mad: :mad:
Apart from that most People are rather cool with my training after I tell them that TCC is a Martial Art and not a health exercise.
“so you do Karate??”
“No, I do Kung Fu.”
5 mins later
“Where do you learn Karate??”
“Its Kung Fu”
“yeah, so do you know how to break boards with your head yet??”
“No”
“Are you a black belt??”
“no”
“So when did you start Karate?”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
Sometimes it gets to me, especially when people I’ve known for ages, still ask me how my Karate is going!!!
Most of the people around me know what I’m doing (even though they might think its Karate), but I think the greatest fun I have is when my arms are bruised from arm conditioning, and people who don’t know what I do, come up to me really concerned and ask me what happened to my arms.
I usually tell them that my ex-boyfriend has slight violent tendancies 
watch for their facial expression - and then tell them what I really do. Cracks me up every time!!
Galadriel
You do karate..?
The best though is when you’re asked what belt you are, then people thinking you must be rubbish as your style doesn’t use a multitude of different belts with fractionally different shades of colours. Mr. Miyugu says they’re only good to hold up your trousers with anyway…
Galadriel and respectred,
Hehe, I’m sure this happens to everyone who practises CMA. Just don’t expect everyone to be experts on the martial arts world. Karate is one of the first (if not first) Asian martial arts that was introduced to the western world, so perhaps the older generation is used to the term karate for Asian martial arts as a whole. However, people who have watched Matrix or something like that should distinguish karate from kungfu.
I used to get frustrated with stuff like that, but I don’t any more. When they ask if it’s karate, I just say yes. If they ask what style, I’ll tell them Taiji. When they ask what color belt I have, I just say black, never mentioning that mine is made of leather.
The most annoying question I get every now and again is, “so…when are you going to teach me some of that stuff?” I always reply honestly, “when you make an effort to learn it.” They usually shut right up.
IMHO, in the world of the “Normal” people there are just 3 views on Martial Arts:
- The confused These people know nothing. My mother even asks me how me “Karate” or “Kung-Fu Fighting” is going. I remind her that I hate Carl Douglas. They don’t want to learn anything about Kung Fu, as they see it as either:
*Stupid
*Pointless
*Only effective for short people.
-
The uneducated Frequently asks if I can do a “Bruce Lee punch” Makes stupid “whroooooaaaarrr” sounds when I enter the room. Flicks past my face to see what I’ll do, then gets scared when I deflect or trap. Argues that “Boxing is way better anyway” and that “I could still shoot you though… how could you beat a guy with an M16…?”
-
The arrogant twat Probably took some form of MA, but never got anywhere. Says stuff like “All that Praying Mantis crap - I could squash a bug” and “It never really works anyway, not against my punching…”
I really have found few exceptions to this outside of the MA world.
I personally don’t take those people (who judge CMA as useless) seriously or care what they say. It’s their opinion and I’m quite sure that telling them different won’t change their mind. Good that they believe in themselves.
You can’t blame people for simply not knowing about the different martial arts. The lady having a ciggarette was probably a nice woman who took karate once herself. Sure they call kung fu karate and only think they know what they have seen in Karate Kid, which does make them ignorant, but so what? Not everybody knows everything. I do not practice a form of kung fu but if someone kept referring to my art as kung fu I really don’t see how it matters. It is not insulting; they just don’t know the differences in what I take and kung fu. I never keep anything to myself about martial arts; I see no reason to. If the subject is brought up I will say that I practice the martial arts and if people start saying incorrect things like that I just educate them. If they get mad at that then too bad for them.
The only problem I DO have is when people act like know it alls and say this art is way better than that art or a gun beats any martial art, etc.
i don’t have the problem because I hang around with people who are either educated about martial arts or don’t give a c rap about them to care what belt/style etc., I am.
Why even worry about it? To my parents, everything is karate. To most of my friends, it’s kung fu (even when I was taking muay thai) - No point in getting upset at people’s ignorance. If they don’t know, they just don’t know. If you tell them and they still don’t get it, then they just don’t care enough to know, which is fine. That applies to most things, not just MA. I can go up to some miscellaneious joe and say “I got a 1Ghz box with a 50GB HD, RAID, DVD and more RAM than anyone can imagine” and he will just say “oh, you have a computer?” Besides, the more ignorant someone is of my skill the better. When it’s all said and done though, it doesn’t matter what style you do, only how effectively you use it. To quote Linkin Park - “In the end, it doesn’t even matter-er-er-er-er…”
funnily enough i get jiujitsu(?) from my grand parents & if they’re feeling particularly intelligent i may even get its real name of wang chong.
i also come from a family who believe boxing is superior but they never seem to want to take up my offer to prove it, esp. my arrogant wanker no it all uncle who i would love to smash.
also when people find out they inevitably say you must be dangerous or something to which i often reply ‘yes, i have hurt myself many times’
vts
That ALWAYS happens!!!
ok, i didt read the last page so i dont know if what i jus said even fits into context…ahrm ahrm ahrm.
Tae Li;)
“Do you really fight that slow?”
No, in fact I don’t fight at all if I can help it.
“Does that stuff really work?”
Only one way to find out for sure. (Drops into cat stance)
“Okay, nevermind!”
That’s what I thought.
Probably the main reason I don’t get the ‘you can’t beat boxing’ and ‘ambush testing’ stuff that some of you have mentioned is that I’m a grown man (I get the feeling a lot of folks on the board are teens) and that I’m pretty large. Given the opportunity to pick a fight with a 210 lb, 6’2" dude most folks will play solitaire or something instead. I noticed Sevenstar, for example, didn’t mention anything like that.
Originally posted by Galadriel
but I think the greatest fun I have is when my arms are bruised from arm conditioning, and people who don’t know what I do, come up to me really concerned and ask me what happened to my arms.
I usually tell them that my ex-boyfriend has slight violent tendancies watch for their facial expression - and then tell them what I really do. Cracks me up every time!!
Galadriel [/B]
haha! i’ve had this reaction happened to me several times when i forget my bruises are there and rest my chin on my hands or other things like that:
person: ‘OH MY GOD what happened to your arm?? you poor thing!’ person then proceeds to grab my wrist and start rubbing my bruises for me ‘does it hurt?’
:rolleyes: no man, you just keep poking it ok?
me: ‘um, i do kung fu… it’s part of the training’
person: really concerned look on their faces ‘i think you should quit.’
:eek: :rolleyes: 