The sheer amount of crap and bullshit that I see in the Martial Arts world every day is astounding!  Literally, I sometimes say to myself WTF!

Ringling Brothers PT Barnun once said or is attributed this quote: “there is a sucker born every minute” and you know what, he was right.  There are some very good salesman out there in the martial world who have little to no skill.  This is especially noticeable in groups that do not have any kind of sparring or live exercises.  However, one of the things that is almost a sure give a way is when you cannot check out someone’s personal history.  Ie. they were in a foreign country drug enforcement position, CIA, raised in a ghetto, gang, etc., etc.  If the story is to fanciful and unbelievable it probably is.  I was recently watching a knife seminar video clip and it was simply craptastic.  The group doing it is unimportant.  What is important is that the leader professes it as some gang knife work and yet get this, he is not in a gang, nor has he ever been in one.  What his knife work is comprised of is Silat and some really fanciful movements.  Good for Knife against the empty hand but… the holes in the movement are so big if the opponent had a weapon they would be toast!  To a trained or skilled person their movement leaves too many openings.

This isn’t the only group there are plenty more.  Literally, I could write a book on this and maybe I will some day.  I was not too long ago in a Tae Kwon Do dojang and the instructor was teaching empty hand versus the knife and what he was showing would get his students killed on the street or at least badly maimed for life.  It was craptastic to the extreme!  it was so bad that afterwards he asked me if I liked it and I usually believe in not saying anything unless you have some thing positive to say.  However, this one time I simply told him that I thought it was a disservice to his students and that he was going to get somebody killed.  Needless to say I do not expect to be on his Christmas list this year.

Yet, I could go on and on and I will!  I was recently at a McDojo Krav Maga studio and they were teaching some empty hand self-defense vs. the gun that frankly did not look like Krav Maga  at all. (which I have studied some)  Instead I am pretty confident that this instructor made up this training right out of his mind… when he was on drugs, that is!  It certainly wasn’t Krav Maga at least not the Krav Maga I have been exposed to!  It was really that bad.

I am a part of one system that has no organizational standards.  It drives any of us that have received quality training crazy as everyone is lumped in with the shit heads who are just plain awful.  What is to be done?  Well nothing can be done in this system other than to train with the people who are skilled and improve yourself.  Still this groups lack of quality control is brutal and laughable and it is one reason why I choose not to teach it!

Poor training, fanciful stories, lack of fundamentals and more contribute to the crap and bullshit I seem to be running across regularly in the Martial world.  So how to know if someone is full of shit?  Well, if you cannot check out there training history ie. their story then there is a good chance they are full of shit.  I mean we all come from some where and have trained with somebody so it shouldn’t be that hard to find a source of someone’s credentials.  I have posted mine before in another blog so feel free to look it up here at the Instinctive Edge.  So when you are thinking of training with someone please for the life of god check out their credentials to insure that you are getting the real deal and not just a load of horse crap!

If you train in IRT I will do my best to steer you in the right direction in your training and ensure that you have quality skills that could give you an advantage in a moment of violence.  I will also try my best to steer you to training that has good purpose behind it.  That is my guarantee to you the IRT practitioner.  I will point out crap to you and also let you know when you are not performing well!  I promise you that!  If you are interested in the Martial Sciences and IRT is not your cup of tea then I will also help you to find suitable training for you.  I will do my best to steer you away from the bullshit that is out there!  Because, there is bullshit out there and you would be best to avoid it!

Hopefully, you will thank me later for this!

See You On The Mats!

Brian R. VanCise

Note: This blog is opinion only and neither Instinctive Response Training LLC or Brian R. VanCise are responsible for any third party actions.

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