Every so often people raise the subject of "resistance training," "Alive training," or (more honestly) "sparring" in the Bujinkan. Surprisingly, few of the folks calling for it have any interest at all in training in the Bujinkan. I have dealt with folks like this so many times on so many message boards that I am going to put all of my thoughts down right here and just post a link here whenever the subject comes up in the future.

What many folks do not realize is that in the early days, Hatsumi had his students spar in the Bujinkan. Several years ago I had someone use me as a translator as they asked about this. The Japanese teacher told us that Hatsumi did indeed have some of his students who had "perfect taijutsu" as he described it do some limited sparring while Hatsumi and the rest of the class looked on. Hatsumi abandoned it after he found that some of the students who did not live in Japan came back and the sparring they did had led to them developing bad habits.

Every time I have mentioned this story, someone who does sparring (but not part of the Bujinkan) seems to take offense and attack me. Since I have time, I will deal with the issue completely and explain why these habits came into being. I have had a lot of time since that talk to think, observe and talk to many Japanese teachers in the Bujinkan about the matter.

In the martial arts there is a lot of ego. That is the key to a lot of what we see. For an activity that is supposed to help people become less dependent on their ego, there is a lot of strutting around with inflated ranks, bold pictures of the teacher and lofty titles. It used to be that soke (inheritor or copyright holder- but sometimes thought to be "grandmaster") was a rare title known only to a few in America. Now it is so common that people are coining other terms from Japanese to try to sound even more elite than a soke.

Anyone who tells you that they are not controlled by their ego is more likely to be controlled by their ego than someone who admits that they like what other people think about them. I am not saying that is a bad thing, olympic athletes don't do what they do to live in obscurity. Ego can drive people to be the best, but many times it causes people to only care about being seen as the best. The difference is very important.

Robert Heinlein wrote, "Man is not a rational animal, but a rationalizing one." People can lie to themselves and do it all the time. Those that are controlled by their ego do not consciously acknowledge it. So we constantly have to ask ourselves if we are doing things in martial arts for a good reason, or if something like ego is the secret reason that even we are not aware of. And when you get into things like competitions, where one person can show superiority over another, the chances of ego coming into play go up a lot.

Whenever there are rules, there are ways to exploit them. Whenever there is a benefit from winning in a competition, there will be those that consciously or unconsciously adapt what they do for the competition. The problem is that many of the things that will get you a better chance at a visible win in a competition will endanger you when those rules are not in force. The habits you build trying to win a competition can actually work against you.

For a good look at this principle in action, take a look at shooting competitions. Many of the shooting sports such as Practical Pistol Competition or the International Pistol Shooting Competition (PPC and IPSC) started out with the aim of building skills for combat shooters. If you look at the competitions now, you would find that the courses now have little to do with reality. The firearms the participants use have little in common with what you see police or civilians carry. The skills are a little harder to determine, but they also have little to do with reality.

No one is shooting back at these competitions, so people are free to do things that would get them shot in reality. In order to put pressure on participant, times are taken and applied to the final score. What was meant to help people get used to pressure has led to people charging around corners without checking if there is anyone there and breaking cover while reloading to save time. When someone is able to shoot back, these acts can get you shot but those that do good skills and consider cover and only move from their current one with loaded firearms will lose to those that do things that are wrong for a firefight.

I have e-mails from people who train folks in combat shooting and they tell horror stories about folks that have spent a lot of time doing pistol competition. After years of doing things for competition where no one is shooting back, they simply can't overcome these habits and use a pistol in such a way that they cover themselves from incoming fire. The instructors tell them what to do, correct them when they are wrong and every time people are left on their own they do what they did for competition instead of what will keep them safe. The habits they build can't seem to be broken after trying so hard to win at competition.

It really does not matter what the rules are. As long as there is competition you will be building up habits for the scenario rather than the reality. People argue that their version of a simulation of violence is more realistic than any other. The simple fact is that it is not reality. Bob Orlando has a great quote, "Training is a simulation of training. The key word is 'Simulation.'" People really tend to forget this and seem to want to somehow think of their skills in the simulation as being some sort of proof of their ability to deal with reality. So yeah, there is a lot of ego involved.

Unarmed defensive tactics are no different in this respect. When you do competition under some sort of rules, certain targets are taken off the table. People can leave these areas unprotected with no fear of harm coming to them. In fact, if they limit themselves to covering only those areas that are allowed under the rules, they have an advantage over folks who are still trying to cover a larger area that does not need it. Thus those that do well at competitions are those that have built up habits of leaving their most vital spots open to attack.

There is an art in Japan called Kyokushinkai karate famed for its vicious competitions. There are always folks that are taken to the hospital every tournament. One of the few rules is that you are allowed to attack the head only with a kick. I have a friend in Japan who has done some non-kyokushinkai sparring with some of these folks and he tells me that he regularly knocks kyokushinkai guys out with a punch to the head. They know going into the ring that the head is now a viable target, but their years of habits and unconscious adapting of techniques geared for their competitions means that they do not have the ability to guard their heads from hand attacks.

This is the problem with sparring. If you get used to not facing certain things, you can structure what you do to deal with a very limited reality very well but be helpless when something new is introduced. Some of these things might be an attack on your eyes or other vital target, or it might be something like a weapon being suddenly brought into play against you or friends jumping in to help the other guy. In fact, just the idea that you are there to defeat the other guy and he is there to defeat you is not an appropriate scenario for a lot of self defense training. In self defense, you objective is to get home with as little injury as possible- not turn the other guy into mulch. In some cases, if you get a chance to run away you should take it. You can't do that in a competition and win.

If you train too much for competition, you will do as you have trained when reality hits. As I posted in my blog about "unarmed" defense, you never know if you will realize there is a knife until after the fight. If you try to do one thing for when there is no weapon and another for when there is, you will still be in the unarmed mindset when the knife is being used on you. When you step into the ring, you know there will not be a weapon used, so you can concentrate on that reality. If all else is equal, the person trying to move as if there might be a knife or other things involved has a huge disadvantage to anyone who tosses out any consideration of what might happen outside the ring and just concentrates on the reality of the ring. That means they will probably lose. It is often pointed out that we learn more from our failures than our victories- but losing really hurts the ego. So, we can expect people to do things on an unconscious level to avoid the shame of public humiliation. That can lead to bad habits.

There is also the differences in mindset. In a competition you are there to "win". You must defeat the other guy. For taijutsu we are more concerned with surviving and getting home unhurt. We do not have to defeat the guy with the knife. We only have to not get stabbed for us to win. There are things you can do to avoid a knife fight that can't be reflected in any sort of competition. Running away is one. Picking up an improvised weapon is another. Walking away from a fight before violence starts is perhaps the best way- but does not appeal to the ego of many.

There is a difference between using sparring for training and training for sparring. Unless you train to spar, you will give an advantage to anyone that steps into the ring with you that does. The top competitor in any sport are the ones that devote the most to their training and cut off anything not relating to it. So the people who do the best at competition usually neglect almost everything else. It is like how chess was a game to learn strategy in the west, with go filling the same role in the east. There were many kings and generals who played chess and attributed it for the skills they learned, but the best chess or go players were never generals themselves. War is a lot more complicated than just a board game and there is only so many hours in the day to do things. Yet, people seem to think that if a person, a school or an art has done well in some sort of competition it indicates it is ideal for something other than the competition.

Here is an example I was told of in Japan. I have not confirmed this with a history book. There was a group of thugs called the Shinsengumi that fought for the Tokugawa side during the end of the shogunate. Some people think of them as the bad guys, and a lot of movies and such recently have been painting them in a good light. What everyone agrees on is that they were a group of very efficient killers. In one case, two of them ran up a flight of stairs at a lodge to take on an entire floor of the enemy. Neither of them got wounded and killed anyone that tried to stand up to them. They sparred against other stylists from time to time and always did terrible. The reason I was told is that they knew what it was like to fight for real and would not differ even a little from that reality. Almost everyone else had somehow taken advantage of the realities of the simulation that is sparring. So those that did worst in sparring were some of the most lethal in reality. Look on those that point to their trophies as proof you should study self defense from them in this light.

Some folks in the martial arts do free response drills, but avoid the idea of a situation where one person can show superiority over another. That means no competition as it is commonly known. Instead, people might be sent in against two people armed with rubber knives with the instruction to avoid being stabbed. If they do get stabbed, the fact that it is such an unfair situation takes the sting out of defeat and lets people be more objective at figuring out what they could have done better. Some of this type of scenario training can actually be done with armored opponents and involve things like interacting with people before blows are thrown. Many experienced martial artists are taken down because they failed to see a sucker punch coming. When you step into a ring, you know there will be blows but that is not the case on the street. In scenario training, the person playing the aggressor might be content with just screaming at you about something. You can not take for granted that he will throw a punch. This alone makes this type of training invaluable for street survival, but it is not competition.

So there is danger in competition and a lot of people still get free response training while avoiding it. Some folks in the Bujinkan do as well. I personally am a big fan of armored assailant training.

There is another danger closely related to this, the idea of practicing against a 'resistant' opponent.

First, let us try to define 'resistant.' Does it mean not just throwing yourself to the ground when the technique is done on you like a Ron Duncan uke? That is something I think we all can agree is not the best thing for training. However, if the idea is that someone is going to try to prevent you from applying a particular technique on them, then there is some real danger involved.

In taijutsu, we try to use the perfect move for the situation given to us. It is not a case of us really choosing what to do, rather it is using what works best without thought. We do not try to impose our wills on what will be done. We should be doing something before we even think about it, and the path we take should be along the path of least resistance. If the other guy is trying to prevent us from slamming down his front door, we should be sneaking around to get in the back.

Many moves become available once an action to prevent another is tried. If I try to prevent you from doing and outside wrist twist by pushing back, you can reverse it to an inside wrist twist and use my own power against me. The ideal is to do this sort of thing long before the other person has any idea you are doing it. They should not have a chance to resist, because you hit where you are not expected and you use every reaction they take to flow into another path that exploits a the new openings.

When you train with someone, they should be helping you to understand the best time to use a particular strategy without conscious thought. You gain this by long exposure to the right conditions for something. Through long experience, you know what to do when the right time for it appears. If you are supposed to do technique "X", your partner should launch his attack so that "X" is the most natural thing to respond with. When the situation presents itself in reality, you have been there so many times before you can instantly and without thought recognize it and your body flows into the perfect response for the situation.

This is not to say that things should just be done with mindless repetition. In a lot of cases, one person can push the other. Traditionally, the senior student of the practicing pair was in a role of a teacher and sometimes would do things like strike at any open spots in the students defense, throw a different attack or even hold one back. A simple example is when the attacker holds back an attack to see if the other person will move in the next movement or instead wait for the actual attack.

I still remember when this first happened to me. It was after I had put in a long time and proven to the folks in Japan that I was willing, even eager, to have my faults pointed out to me. Most do not reach this stage. While doing a throw on a Japanese student much senior to me, I suddenly realized that he had reached up as he was going over and did something that would have gotten him hit with a sexual harassment accusation anywhere other than a Japanese dojo. "Musashi ryu" he grinned as he got up from the throw, a clear reference to a story that happened to the prior head of out art who had his ear drum damaged by a member of Musashi ryu as he was throwing him. Obviously, I had left myself open to being hit as I threw someone. Instead of rationalizing it away or getting mad, I started paying attention to covering myself as I threw someone. There is something about having your scrotum handled by another man that sharpens your defensive mindset.

This sort of thing was traditionally done by the senior of the two and not the junior. I have seen many cases where people of about equal rank have tried to do this on each other and it usually leads to something that resembles two beta males trying to figure out who will be the alpha. As I said at the beginning, there is a lot of ego in martial arts and a lot of us that are attracted to it have it as a vice so secret even we are unaware of it, or maybe we are the only ones unaware. I have seen people throw attacks that are clearly not intended to land, only set up for a counterattack if the other guy starts to do the technique as the teacher showed. Unless one is clearly in a position to teach the other, the abuse seems to outweigh the gains in my experience.

Getting back to the idea of doing what is most appropriate and training to recognize the situation for each move, it should be clear that dealing with resistance is counter productive. If you are supposed to strike when and where he does not expect you to, then you should not be training yourself to deal with a situation where he clearly knows what it coming. If he resists, that means you intent is known and you need to be doing something else other than trying to bash through his resistance. Any resistance he gives should be a key for focusing his attention on something that you are abandoning to move into another attack before he realizes the old attack has become little more than a feint. You through technique "A" and he starts to resist that technique, which you now drop as you go into technique "B". Since he is still thinks you are trying to apply "A" he can't see "B" and thinks that "A" was merely there as a bluff. It was not. Had he not reacted to it and it could have gotten through, it would have been what you used. "If you think it is there, it is not. If you think it is not there, it is."

This takes longer to achieve than doing things like gaining muscle mass and going through the other guys defense instead of around. I once gained seven kilos of muscle in the course of eight weeks, but the skills to perfect skills like this takes years, if not decades. If you are expecting to go into battle in a few months, gaining strength and bashing through a defense is probably better for your purposes. For those that have time and wish to continue training well into your old age, training yourself to take the path of least resistance might be a better bet.

There is different approaches to problems and not only is there not just one way to solve a problem, what works for one set of circumstances might not work for another. Some people have found that sparring delivers immediate benefits and do not think that anything else can work. That is rather closed minded in my opinion. Just because something takes longer does not mean that it is any less valid. I had a friend going to pre- med classes. After a year he was talking about some of his tests. I had gone through an Emergency Medical Technician class and I knew some of the symptoms he had faced on his test. Even though I had only gone  through a six month class, I was better able to take care of someone than a guy after a year of training to be a doctor. Now he is a doctor and can take care of people far better than I ever could. This is an example of how sometimes the longer route can lead to better results. So it can be too with things like taijutsu.

So when I hear the idea of training against resistant partners I cringe. At the same time, I do not like the idea of a partner that will go down no matter how lousy the throw is. There is a huge difference in resisting and not being a patsy. Many of us are open to some form of free play in training, but fear the ego's way of influencing us without our knowing it when there is competition.

I have been asked on a few occasions as to what the Kuki family were. Some sources say they were pirates, some say they were tax collectors. The truth is they ran a protection racket.

To understand the way they did things, you have to understand just how important trade by ship, even within a single country, is. Even today, most of the goods transported between countries are sent by ship. And it is very common for American goods to be sent up a coast or along the Great Lakes instead of by rail, plane or truck. Despite all the advances in roads and rail service, sea transport is still the cheapest way to ship goods per kilometer.

Imagine just how much more so this was in Japan 300 years ago. Something like 93 percent of the country is too mountainous to farm and that means it would be very difficult to travel goods over. Today there are trains that travel up and down the country, but they travel through tunnels blasted out of the mountains and through areas cleared by modern earth moving equipment.

For the pre-modern Japanese, sending goods by ship was the most logical move. Not only is the country fairly thin- which allows a great number of places to be bear potential sea ports, but it also is blessed with numerous wide rivers that small craft can sail up without difficulty.

The ships the transported the goods were not deep sea craft. They were more suited to traveling close to shore where they could take refuge if a storm came up. Their small size prevented them from going far out to sea, but allowed them to go up many rivers larger and deeper hulled craft could not. Out in the open sea, their shallow hull would be very unstable and there really was no need for it as long as they stayed near the shore.

Preying on these ships were what the Japanese called "kaizoku". This is translated into English as "Pirate." But along with the meaning of raiders from the sea, it can also be used to describe groups that would set up on key areas, such as capes, and demand payment to allow ships to travel past them. This is how the Kuki family started out.

If the payments were too high, it would kill trade. Too many extortionists on the route would end with the same result. If the merchants screamed loud enough, the government (or governments) would have to step in and launch an attack. So the various groups that set themselves up as pirates seemed to have spent more time battling other pirate groups than anyone else and actually keeping ships sailing through their area safe from other groups. They rationalized what they did because there actually were other groups that would prey on their 'customers' if they were not performing their service.

The ships the Kuki and others used were pretty close to what the merchants were using. They were shallow hulled and not suited for open ocean. When the Kuki later tried to build a bigger ship, they still built is with the shallow hulled model and it ended up getting tipped over during a sea battle. One thing that made them different from the merchant ships was that they were built to provide protection for the crew from missile weapons like arrows. The samurai had used ships for battles before. But for the most part they had taken regular ships with little or no protection and put standing shields on them to keep the soldiers safe until they could close with the other vessel and jump onto it. This was the case during the battles of the Genpei war and the later invasion of Japan by the Mongols.

Despite having small structures on them, the ships were not meant to be slept in. They were tied to the shore. Without base camps and strong points, the pirates could not operate. Many pirates operating on the inland sea of between Shikoku and the main island of Japan (Honshu) set up on small islands and fortified them just as strong as most fortresses of the day. These were not castles as we view them in the west. Rather they were more like what modern day soldiers would probably build if they were in an area for a few weeks, minus an attempt to camouflage anything. Walls were set up, and trenches dug before them filled with things like sharpened bamboo stakes with ropes at ankle level strung between them. Any enemy troops trying to pick their way safely through these areas would be fired upon by troops behind the protection of a wall, and probably from higher ground as well. There are many such islands that were left to go back to nature that still can be identified as former fortresses by the trenches and such- but little else made by man on them.

The shallow hulls of the ships the pirates used were useful in beaching them in cases like this. The weapon known in the Kukishinden ryu as a "sharin" was used to help move ships on or off shore. The soldiers carrying them might be the last on the beach as the pirates pulled back behind their defenses as a larger force came at them to attack. Or he might be one of the first out from behind protection when a sudden attack was launched by the besieged pirates from their base. Or the ship might have beached and hid if they were caught alone far from support.

In the late 16th century there was an explosion in the way wars were waged in Japan. Oda Nobunaga was one of the leaders in the new ways of war. He was also one of the closest to the Jesuit priests who themselves were largely composed of former military men. Whether by coincidence or because of conversations he had with these men of the cloth, he led the way in introducing pikemen and using firearms as part of group tactics. Both these changes forever upset the balance of warfare in Japan. Prior to this, the number of foot soldiers that were hired by the samurai always outnumbered their more noble masters. But where there might be ten foot soldiers following a samurai in wars of the 13th century, there might be 100 foot soldiers for every samurai of noble birth in the later 16th. Before, the greater training the samurai had, because they could devote time to such tasks as hitting a moving target from the back of a galloping horse, limited the usefulness of too many men to little more than targets to the more mobile samurai with their greater ranged weapons.

When soldiers starting using pikes as part of a formation they largely prevented mounted samurai from mowing them down with ease. When large numbers of soldiers started using firearms in volley fire, they took away the mounted samurai's range advantage gained after long years with the bow. Thanks to the new technology and tactics it was now possible to take large numbers of farmers, give them a few weeks of training and have them hold their own against a group of samurai who had devoted their entire lives to training. Now the victories went largely to the larger armies. To meet this need, huge numbers of men were added to armies. Exact figures from the age do not exist, but it is probably that something like 7 percent of the men at the time served at one time or another in an army. That is a huge number for any age, let alone a pre-industrial one.

With the rise in numbers of troops went a rise in the amount of food and such to supply them. Even when armies were smaller, troops could strip an area they went through better than locusts. With the larger armies came a need to pull in supplies from outside the battlefield area. This meant that water transport increased in importance as well as the need to protect shipments.

Many of the pirates were recruited by daimyo to serve as their navy. They had the experience of operating and fighting by ship that the daimyo suddenly found to be a needed part of their militaries. The Kuki were recruited by Oda Nobunaga and fought in such battles as the siege of Ishiyama- Honganji. Their job was to keep supplies to the besieged fortress from arriving by sea and up the nearby rivers to the fortress. They met with mixed success. Their base camps on shore were attacked and the ship they built to serve as the anchor for their defensive line was tipped over by ships working for Oda's enemies- the Mori family. But the Oda forces were victorious in the end.

After Oda was killed, the Kuki found themselves working for Toyotomi Hideyoshi and served as his navy during the invasion of Korea. Their record during this time is mixed. They seem to have done well enough most of the time, but eventually the forces from Korea were withdrawn, partially due to the danger to their supply lines by sea.

Toyotomi's death set off another jockeying for power and after a bit of dalliance with Ishida Mitsunari (loser at the battle of Sekigahara) they ended up under the control of the Tokugawa family and helped lay siege to the Toyotomi remainders at what used to be Ishiyama-Honganji.

The Tokugawa were the rulers in the last shogunate of Japan and under them the Kuki were a wealthy, respectable family. Almost immediately they started distancing themselves from their past as shake down artists. Some of the stories they told to explain their early history are unique to them. There are still many things that they tell as part of their history that have no verification by other sources.

Eventually, they became better known for religion than anything related to the sea or related to fighting. While there are stories that they may have had an influence in the formation of aikido and judo, cold hard facts are not something I have seen so far. Much of what they had taught as martial arts actually were passed down through lines from outside the family and that continues to this day. Though as the family that began the traditions, they feel they are still hold the responsibility for its transmission.

People have suggested that I should write something about how to recognize and deal with martial arts frauds. Living in Japan I have a better understanding of its martial arts and history and in the past I have helped poke holes in the stories of many frauds.



It is actually rather sad that I have to write this. I went onto the internet to get information about martial arts. I did find some online journals, web sites and other resources that were of help. But as soon as I wandered onto a message board I was confronted with frauds spreading complete rubbish. I soon found myself trying to counter the mistakes they were spreading in order to make themselves look good. I happen to like history and I was able to point out many mistakes in what they were trying to present. Soon I got the reputation as both a fraud buster and a history expert. I would just prefer to deal with normal conversations. But over the years I've been pulled into a lot of investigations and I have learned all of the tricks that they seem to use as well as a simple litmus test for determining if someone is 99 percent likely to be a fraud.



The key to figuring out if the teacher you are thinking of studying with or the guy you are communicating with is a fraud is simple, verify his claims regarding his personal experiences. Do not worry about the generations prior to him. He may not know how to confirm the story of his teacher. He may have been lied to, or made a mistake about something that happened to his teacher- but there is no excuse for not knowing and being able to prove what happened to him.



This is important for determining the honesty of the person. If someone wants to make claims in public to attract students, then it is their responsibility to back those claims up just as publicly. If they do not want to prove anything, they should not be talking about it in public.



I expect people to make mistakes about history, Japanese culture and things like that. People make mistakes. Even the most legitimate and advanced student of a martial art may not know beans about their arts history or related subjects. Some people just train and learn how to do their art, but know nothing about who is who, who did what and where the bodies are buried. They are not frauds for not knowing something like that.



But there is no excuse for them not knowing what happened to them. And that is what they have to prove.



If they claim to have trained with a teacher in a 500 year old art, then they have to prove that they trained under that teacher. Don't worry about the 500 year old part if he can't prove even the simple fact of whether if he ever had a teacher. If he claims to have been in a secret military unit that fought in Croatia then make him prove that he was in it and don't get bogged down with conversations about the political situation in the former Yugoslavia. If they want to say they had hundreds of street fights, ask for documentation in the form of police reports, hospital records, legal bills and things like that.



Keep in mind that you want to be polite about this, but if he is saying you should train with him because they teacher is qualified in a certain way you have the right to ask for proof. You can't expect people to provide personal information to you for just any reason. But if they mention being trained by a certain teacher or have it on their web site, then it becomes fair game if it relates to their qualifications. Just keep things in perspective. If I ever started teaching my art, I would be happy to point people to the office in Japan that administers my art. If I provided that, and they told you I was qualified to teach, I would probably feel justified in refusing to give the phone number of my teacher in Japan.




The concentrating on the personal history will also let you know if you are dealing with a fraud or someone who has been fooled by a fraud. I have run across many people who tried to defend their teachers. I have gotten a few of them to realize they were being lied to. The key was that everyone who was being fooled backed up what they experienced and where they heard things. If they claimed to have trained with a teacher who is a fraud, they will say where you can find them and confirm their story. The people that don't do that are the frauds. Eventually you work your way up the ladder and find the point where someone says they were an assassin for the CIA and only give excuses when asked for some proof. You may have to check the story of not only the teacher, but the head of the organization as well. You can only go as far as the head of the art, and if he is a fraud then the instructors under him can't teach you any better.



But be careful. Sometimes there are people who have so much invested in the status they get from a fraudulant leader that they end up helping with the deception themselves. It is not uncommon for the people at the top of the chain to be the ones who were around long enough to realize they were involved in a fraudulant art, maybe even a cult, but not drop out like everyone else when faced with the truth. Marc MacYoung gave the term "Bitch Squad" for these types in an article he wrote about martial arts cults. It is an apt name. The BS guys go out and engage in the worse attacks against anyone who criticizes the cult's leader, make the most outlandish claims and run cover for the head of the art who keeps his reputation intact by not seeming to be involved in petty arguments. If some claim about the teacher the BS makes is found to be untrue, the head has a cut out and can say it was a mistake by his subordinates and not a lie by him. This is actually very common in the bigger cults that pass themselves off as martial arts. Imagine if you had joined a martial art at age 15 and after 20 years you were a full time instructor of the art. Your kids go to school and eat based on the art you teach. Considering just how much of your self image is based on being a teacher of a legitimate martial art and the utter lack of skill you would have for almost any other job, you can imagine why people would do anything, anything at all to defend that status quo.



You can usually tell an honest student from a BS member by the way they will back up what they say. An honest student will give his sources. If he is relying on the word of his teacher he will say so. He will admit it. He may argue that others have to prove that what his teacher claims is wrong or make bad arguments, but he will give his sources. The BS member will usually say they are privy to information that the rest of the world is not and they can't back it up. They will say they traveled with their teacher to Japan, or found records of his military service, or talked with other members of his CIA unit. None of this will be something anyone else can do for various reasons.



At this point, some people ask why it matters if someone is lying about their experiences or not as long as the skills they teach are good. Even today I am still floored whenever I hear this question.



Central to the idea of martial arts is the concept of honor and integrity. Without that, there is nothing you can learn from someone that can't be better learned elsewhere. The martial arts did not build up this idea for purely noble reasons. They did it because honestly dangerous arts know that teaching their skills to people of questionable morals is like giving a pistol to a convicted felon. Yet I have heard people say that they have been studying martial arts for 20 years and they don't care if a particular person is lying through his teeth or not, as long as they get what they want. These people are lost forever to the true depths that the martial arts can give. They have built their experience on the wrong foundation and instead of a large, stable, structure they are left only with something that can collapse at any time. I have run into people like this, and they are as morally questionable and lacking in skill (to my eye) than the worst frauds. Some people do not believe that their teacher or the guy they know is a fraud. But it is the ones that ask, "who cares if he pads his resume" that show as much of a lack of honor as the fraud spreading the lie.



If someone was stealing, would you not care if they did so as long as they did not steal from you? Because in essence that is what those that excuse frauds are doing. If people attract students based on a lie, then they are selling false goods. I myself will not associate with such folks, nor those who claim to not care. I got into martial arts not only to defend myself, but to make the world a better place. Excusing fraud as long as you get what you want is not a way to leave the world a better place for our children.



On a more practical level, unless you have a lot of experience facing folks that want to kill you, enough to start recognizing patterns and build up a statistical base, you probably really can't tell what will work in a live situation and what will only work inside the ring or on the training mat with a partner. That lack of knowledge is nothing to be ashamed of. But we have to be honest about it. We have to acknowledge that what we think as being a useful skill may not be. As long as we are honest, when better information comes along based on reality we can adopt it. But a fraud is not honest and when information contradicts what he saying, he will reject it.



So we really do not know what is good and what is not. We can tell if someone is better than us- but from that standpoint we can't tell how they rate compared to real masters. And we can't tell if by going down the path of someone better than us whether we will end up with the masters, or end up in the dead end that all the frauds I know end up in. It would be rather egotistical to say that you can judge the amount of skill of someone you acknowledge as being better than you. All you can say is that he seems to know more and you can't say how he rates compared with others who have more skill than you.



Ego is rampant in the martial arts. And it is one of the biggest hurdles everyone has to overcome to improve. There is nothing wrong with taking pride in your accomplishments. But you need to recognize and accept your failings so that you can work on them and overcome them. Mistakes and failures are actually wonderful things for advancement. You need to push yourself until you fall flat on your face, dust yourself off and figure out why you faltered so you can overcome your present skill level. A teacher coming over and pointing out all of your many mistakes is helping you to see things you couldn't on your own to work on and eliminate. If you live for the applause of others, it will be very difficult to admit those mistakes, even to yourself. The more importance you place on the adulation of others, the more a slave to your ego you become.



And people who lie to look better are total slaves to their ego.



This is why it is important to differentiate between those that are passing along information that may be false as honestly as they can and those that know they are not telling the truth. A person who was told that his teacher used a technique in real life will acknowledge that he can't get the desired results from the technique and look to what he is doing wrong. He will work at the problem until he either finds a way to make it work, or think that he is missing something and gives up on the technique. But the person who made up the story has told people he made the technique work, so evidence that it does not work threatens that story. He will make excuses, even blame the students for their failing to make it work and anything other than re-examine the basic problems with how he had shown the technique. Thus ends their ability to learn more.



Make no mistake, every fraud I have run across is motivated by ego. Money is an added benefit, but if you have low morals and are willing to lie there are much more profitable scams than teaching martial arts. Some of the biggest frauds don't get into teaching for money; they end up doing that because it makes their image a bigger part of their life. The people that try to pass themselves off as veterans of elite military units don't do it for money, but they may do it so that people will respect them as macho studs. People who make false claims in martial arts do so for the same reason. But unlike the fake vet, you can make your means of support off of teaching and put it on their business cards. It looks strange if you tell a person you just met that you were in the green berets in Vietnam. If you try it will be obvious to all that you are trying to impress people. But if you live off of teaching you get to let people know your status as the last living grand- master of Whoflung-pu just as soon as the common question of, "what do you do for a living" comes up.



But just because someone is not making a living off of teaching, or even taking money, does not eliminate the chance that they are a fraud. Getting called master is often enough.



I have been a student of martial arts for over a quarter of a century, but never felt the desire to open up my own school. There is just so much out there to still learn from others and teaching people would take time away from that. Besides, I live in Japan and the idea of a caucasian teaching Japanese a Japanese martial art is pretty rare. But I have taken over a few times when my teacher could not make class and asked me. And I have been asked to show things when I travelled outside of Japan. I can tell you, it is very pleasing to the ego to be looked on as a teacher. People bow to you and call you fancy titles if you don't stop them. You can see respect in their eyes as they talk to you and feel amazement when you show them some key to the problem they could not see. Oh yeah, I could get used to that real easily.



For some people, that type of thing is a drug. It becomes not just a nice experience in life, but rather a reason for living. You can see it in rock stars and olympic athletes. The money is good, but the fame- the respect- is what motivates them to put in the extra time to excel. It is difficult to fake ability in these types of things. Milli- Vinilli pulled it off in the world of music, and people do take steroids to improve sports performance. But in martial arts there rarely is a chance to demonstrate the skills you learn outside of a controlled situation. Even sparring can be controlled to play to certain strengths. But actual fights that may end up in death are not something that 99 percent of the students learning martial arts will ever face, let alone demonstrate to others.



So people seeking the quick, easy way to being treated as macho studs can lie about their past and teach martial arts. They build up their life, their image, their status in the community and among everyone that knows them based on a lie. The fact that they know they are lying is not important as long as people believe it. They are so much a slave to their ego that they give that much power to total strangers. To be exposed means losing everything- their status and self image primary among them. After building up everything on the base of being thought of as a master, the thought of losing that is worse than even dying. It is a form of dying. For them, their life is dependent on how others view them. To not be looked on in the same way voids their reason for existing, and thus their life.



Trust me, when these people face losing their purpose of their existence like that you don't want to be anywhere near ground zero.



I have worked with a group of ex-students of a fraud. Through an internet message board I countered the points their teacher had tried to push and it was his inability to deal with simple questions of proof coupled with my ability to provide references to counter what he said that caused them to realize the truth and lead a large defection.



Then things got ugly for them.



People leaving the group told stories of criminal behavior, students being made pregnant by teachers, prison experience for the head and other horror stories that they had been willing to overlook at the time. They had all kept quiet and mainly thought that it was normal, or that they were the only ones that saw it. Once they started talking and comparing notes, it became quite clear that the group was a very dangerous criminal group and they told the world about what had happened to them. The leader of the group retaliated by any means he could. He tried to destroy any student who had left him if it was in his ability. He used frivolous lawsuits, turned family members against them with false stories and even physical intimidation. Some of them were honestly convinced that their lives were in danger.



That is the type of thing you may face if you get involved with someone willing to lie to make themselves look good. None of them saw the danger when they walked into the martial arts studio. Con men are rather charming when you first meet them. So are cult leaders. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. And as long as things go their way, most frauds can seem to be the nicest people on the planet. But at the first sign of their house of cards falling and the truth being exposed, you see a whole new ugly side to them.



Consider the fact that these people already do things that decent people would never do, namely building their entire life around living a lie and deceiving even their closest loved ones. You threaten to bring down all they worked for, all that they really are. You threaten something that is their existence and they have been proven to not have a problem with behavior we would find repulsive. Just try to imagine how they will react even if you have no intent on exposing them. Even if all you do is ask innocent questions or find something somewhere that contradicts an element of their story, you can be a target. Martial arts con men have sent students to kill others. These cases are a legal fact and documented. You don't want to risk it by looking the other way when honest concerns are first raised. It is best to just put as much distance between yourself and someone who won't answer simple questions. There are always other teachers you can train under that are honest about what they do and are no risk to you.



Again, the simplest way to tell if someone is a liar is to concentrate on what they claim has happened to them. What happened to others is not easy to confirm sometimes and there may be an honest reason why someone can't back up what they were told. But on important things, there is no excuse for not backing up personal experience.



Let me give you an example. I served in the military. According to my family, my great grandfather served in the Union Army in the war between the states. The only picture I have of him was taken decades later and I have little idea of how I would find out if he served, and with which unit. I never even met him. But if I wanted to prove that I served, I know exactly how to prove it. I have a mountain of proof. Other people and institutions can back up what I say about my military service. Even if the military lost each and every record they had on me, I could still provide dates and the names of people who served with me. They could be contacted and their relationship in the military could be confirmed.



It is the same way with martial arts. There is no excuse for someone who claims to have more than a couple of months of training to not be able to lay the proof down for others to check for themselves. If it was only a single weekend seminar, then maybe no one would remember them. But if they are claiming to teach an art, then they had to stick around for years and get certification. That type of person should be able to lay it out and let you talk to their teachers to answer your questions. Even if the teacher is dead, there should still be multiple sources that can confirm the story.



Checking with the teacher of a person you are planning on training with is a pretty good idea. Sometimes people can be associated with very decent, legitimate teachers and still fall into the fraud category because they inflate their experience. Many people spend a little time training in Japan, earn a yellow belt and by some form of magic gain a tenth level degree black belt on the airline flight home. I am aware of many people that have done that. If anyone balks at the idea of you contacting their teacher or their organization, your suspicions should be roused.



Worse, I am also aware of a few cases where people have studied martial arts and actually gotten very good at it. But their attraction to the martial arts seems to have been at least partially motivated by a desire for access to young children. When they are discovered molesting their charges, quite frequently they move to another state (after serving time in prison) and set themselves up as martial arts instructors again. Even if they are supervised and not allowed to run children's classes, they still are a danger and you don't want to be associated with them. If you were to contact their old teachers, they will be aware of the situation and they will warn you off. An unwillingness to let you contact their past teachers may be because of this. Some of us are not willing to take the chance even if they are skilled.



It is sad, but it is very easy today to gain something to show a person that will seem on a shallow level to back up their story. If you have any reason to suspect something, you need to look at it from the angle of how the evidence you see could have been made up. Putting something on an internet home page does not mean it happened. I have seen people claim too be members of actual organizations in Japan when I know they are not. Their web page to this day still lists the claim.



Unless you are really close to the subject matter, certificates on a wall or a web page are pretty much useless now. With photoshop and laser printers anyone can come up with something that looks good to the untrained eye. The writing on it may have come from the local Chinese restaurant. I have seen certificates that had Japanese written on them that made me fall off my seat laughing. But unless you read the language, you could not tell. The certificate that read that it was from the "Heavenly Dog Association" and had a different name on it than the guy claiming it as his own actually was pretty neat in terms of fonts and such. I suspect that a few things were taken from examples posted on the internet and the final version was what I saw. So beware anyone who says that a certificate is all you need and that they don't want you contacting their teacher.



Beware of pictures being presented as some sort of proof. An exception to this might be pictures obviously taken over the course of a few decades that cover both training situations and social ones. Take a look at the pictures and ask if they could have been taken over the course of a single weekend seminar, or less. Beware of accepting the comments on what is going on in the photo. Ask yourself if there is another possible reason.



As an example, if you took a seminar with someone and at the end of it presented a certificate of appreciation to the teacher for visiting you, how would a photo of you passing it to him differ from a photo of him passing a tenth degree black belt certificate to you? Answer- not a bit. You can make a fake certificate that resembles the certificate you gave him and have it say whatever you want. There is an actual case prosecuted in Japan with the leader of a cult. During the trial it was revealed that this man had arranged a meeting with the Dalai Lama and presented him with a fancy ring that he also wore. The pictures of the two of them standing side by side wearing the same ring and of a ring being passed from one to the other were offered as proof to his flock that he had been made part of an elite, secret religious group by the Dalai Lama.



Many famous people let others take pictures with them. This is true in martial arts as well. Ninety nine percent of the time these photos are treasured by the recipients and remind them of the time they met with a man they admire. If I had a photo of me with the late Bruce Lee, I would frame it and put it on the wall. But they can also be used to try to convince people that these famous folks are either their teachers, or approve and support what they do. All the photos really prove is that they were in the same room together at some point. And with photoshop even this may not be true.



Photos of people are just photos of people. If the person who claims they were taught by the people in the photo is not even in the photo with them, then it could be anything. I know of cases where people have pictures of honest, respected martial artists on their web site and in their school with claims that these people are their teachers and I know that the two have never even met. I am also aware of a case where the leaders of that group I helped leave a cult came to Japan merely to take a lot of pictures of themselves. They put a photo of a man wearing the robe they used in their school up on their web site and claimed it was their mysterious teacher. A quick investigation by people in Japan found that it was a staff member at a Japanese theme park that had been asked to pose for a photo with the group. The thing that caused suspicion in the Japanese searchers was that the robe was worn over a polo- style shirt instead of being worn as a Japanese martial arts uniform normally is.



Be very wary of any resistance to a reasonable request to contact the person they claim to have taught them. And it is best to run, not walk, away if they even hint at there being a need for secrecy as the reason.



Let me get this straight, they have a school in the local strip mall where they will tell you they are a ninjutsu system, a web site visible to billions advertising themselves as a ninjutsu system and have books they write where they claim to be a ninjutsu system- and after all that publicity it is only when they are asked for simple proof that the leader actually had a real teacher of ninjutsu that the subject of secrecy comes up? Just how stupid do they think you are?



If someone is going to make a claim, it is not a secret. The more open the claim, the less the excuse of secrecy is valid. If you hear it before you are even a student, it can in no way be defended as being a secret.



I do know people that have secrets. We all have things we don't want others to know, or at least only those that we can trust with the information. These things are not talked about in the open or to people you have not known for a good long time. Anything else, any talk that someone other than their best friends are privy to is an open claim and then has to be proven or treated as a lie. They may not be able to prove what they heard from their teachers, but they have to be able to prove what happened to them.



An even bigger danger sign is any talk at all of enemies being out to get them or of conspiracies. As silly as it sounds as you sit in front of your computer screen reading this, it is one of the most common tactics used by groups with dubious claims. Anyone who casts doubts on them are attacked on a personal level and said to be saying what they are due to some sort of agenda. If it is multiple sources casting doubt, then frequently the explanation is that they are working together. Believe it or not, I know of one case where a fraud claims that articles that expose him in sources as diverse as Soldier of Fortune Magazine (about as right wing as you can get) and the rather liberal L.A. Times are part of a plot by the CIA to destroy his reputation.



I do have to admit that sometimes accusations are motivated by an agenda and not the truth. In a custody battle in a bitter divorce case it is not uncommon for one parent to suddenly break their years of silence and accuse the other one of child molestation. These things happen and you should be aware that the frauds themselves frequently attack their critics to deflect their comments. But you should find it strange that everyone who is casting doubt on someone's claims are out to get them. Take a look and see if these attackers are not rival schools, or ex- students/ lovers/ partners but rather objective sources like CNN and the L.A. Times. If someone points out that they can't prove something, they don't shut the critic up by proving it, but instead go on the attack of their character? Accusations should be met with proof, or demanding that the other side show proof- not in more attacks in kind. Whenever there is a case of possible motivation, it usually is pretty obvious. The reasons they could have for falsely accusing are as obvious as the child custody case. They can be proven to exist. It should not require possible motivations that need to be explained and can't be proven. They can be proven to exist. Accusations of misdeeds by those that cast doubt should be proven if made.



Seriously, if talk of people being out to get the teacher are a major part of the defense, you are probably dealing with an out and out cult. You never want to get involved with a group that acts like this. Take a look at the famous cults in the past that cost a lot of innocent lives and you will probably find this type of tactic. The Japanese cult that gassed the subways earlier had kidnapped and murdered a lawyer and his family who had led the legal battle against them. In the course of the kidnap, a badge of one of the members was left behind and pointed to the cult's involvement. The response by the cult that it was planted to make them look bad. They repeated the tactic when the first evidence of their involvement in the subway attack became public. Of course, they were found to be guilty. Other cults have used the tactic. It is a dangerous sign. And it is best to avoid anything that even hints of that type of reasoning.



Claims of secrecy and of conspiracies out to get them are not just signs of fraud, they are very real signs of potential danger. It is not worth the risk. People have died from groups that use this type of excuse to explain things away.



There are many lesser signals of possible concern. Not all of them are proof of fraud, but they should set off red flags. In most cases, you might not bother trying to check the claims of your teacher. But if you see some of these red flags, you should start to wonder.



- Selling a fantasy. Take a serious look at some internet sites and you will come away with the idea that they were written to cater to the fantasy of a 14 year old raised on bad kung fu movies and ones with explosions. Not all frauds do this, nor are all the people that do this frauds. But there is a high correlation between the two. I know of some folks who teach in a park and try to keep a low profile so as to not attract the attention of the police. But groups that have you sneak into a hidden location are just plain silly. If you see things in the hand outs or web site like sniper rifles, hooded ninja climbing walls and guys in military style uniforms, it may be a bad sign.



- Claims of military service, especially elite units and combat experience as part of the resume of the martial arts teacher. As I already wrote, martial arts frauds lie to make themselves look like macho studs. Being a combat veteran of an elite unit is one way you can be viewed in that light. Military service has very little to do with martial arts, so its inclusion in part of the studio literature about the teacher is a worrying sign.



Of course, there are people who have made names in the martial arts and served in respectable military units. I know several. One example is my friend Alain Burrese. He joined the military as a young man because the idea of jumping out of airplanes and blowing up buildings appeals to many men at that age. After training him as a paratrooper the army sent him to Korea. While there he received training in being a sniper. Korea is famous for its martial arts and for someone with as many wild oats to sow as Alain, it was a chance not to be missed and he was introduced to Hapkido. He even moved back to Korea after leaving the service to train. Today he is a fourth dan and practices law, teaching martial arts only in his spare time.



Many of the first teachers of karate were service men stationed in Okinawa after the war. Many of the folks I know who like martial arts also like guns, and many of the people who like guns served time in the military. There is a high percentage of mutual interest. But the legitimate folks I know like Alain just don't think that their military experience has anything to do with their skill in the martial art and don't think they should attract students with it. Frauds seem to try to link their martial arts experience with their military one by telling stories of having to use their knife defense techniques instead of the typical soldier solution of shooting the knifer. A key sign seems to be that many frauds not only say they were part of the military, but that they also saw combat. People like Alain who never claimed to have been in a shooting war are probably safe bets.



- Stories that sound too good to be true, probably are not true. It is strange to have to point this out, but the way some people pile on higher and deeper the stories about themselves should be a warning sign of it's own. But in person they often are a lot more subtle and not all laid out at once. Just how many people in the world are the students of secret Apache wrestling techniques taught from a young age to only to a select few each generation AND a veteran of an elite unit involved in every conflict since the first gulf war AND an ex- assassin for Interpol AND a secret student of Bruce Lee AND a holy warrior monk under the command of the Dalai Lama?



Yes, objectively speaking it is strange to think that people would not be suspicious of so many claims. The problem I have seen in frauds that lie to make themselves look better is that there is a hole in their personality. They only live for the admiration of others. They can't exist without occasionally getting people to look at them as they spin their stories. So they have to come up with new stories. It is rare to find someone lying about only one part of their life. Too many good things may be a sign that they have run out of stories in the past.



- Stories of learning from early childhood. This actually does happen in Asia within families. If the guy is not from Asia, then the chances of this are pretty much zero. People may start training at the local martial arts academy with all the other kids from age seven, or younger. But if the claim is of learning from a guy in their back yard or something it can be safely stowed with all the stories that can't be confirmed. The person they said taught them one on one in the back yard can never be found, and if the parents are alive they are always unaware that their little boy was spending so much time with a man they never met. Unless they wanted their kid to be molested and end up with his throat cut and body dumped in a ditch, they probably were pretty aware of where he was most of the time. There is no way they could have missed that guy teaching their son from age 5 to 18.



I think this is so common because people want to make themselves sound as skilled as possible and pushing back the age gives them more time under training they can claim. Instead of 6 months of training at age 17 at the local Shaolin- Kenpo- karate & kung fu franchise on the corner, they can say they had 15 years of more by the time they are 20.



- Claims of high ranks in multiple martial arts or offering classes in them. Martial arts are very, very different from each other. It is very difficult to gain a real level of skill in disciplines as diverse as ballet is from football. It may seem that skill in one art carries over to another, but unless you are talking arts with very similar roots, this is just not the case. Internal Chinese arts are very, very different from hard style Japanese ones.



Many experienced martial artists have been exposed to a variety of arts. Taking a seminar in an art not only broadens your outlook, it might reveal an art that is better than the one you now do. But there is a difference between that and saying that you are skilled enough to teach those arts. Getting skilled enough to teach an art takes years of instruction on a regular basis with a qualified teacher. If you see people in the 20s or 30s claiming to teach five or more arts, it is time to get suspicious.



Today there are people that will essentially sell you a rank. They may even be legit teachers but have sold out for money. They may try to cover over this fact by calling what they do something like "long distance video learning courses" but in most cases it is pretty much assured you will get the rank after the check clears the bank. And the teachers will not be eager to point out how they got the rank. Your only hint may be in seeing that someone claims to have gotten a rank from someone thousands of miles away.



-Wall candy. This is the name for certificates that look pretty sitting on a wall, but don't have much nutritional value. Today, anyone with a laser printer can design an impressive looking certificate. And as common as it is for people to do just that, there are also ways of getting wall candy from other sources that seem more real.



The first type is a soke board. A soke is a Japanese term for the person who owns the copyright for an arts name. If you want to teach it, you have to get his permission and follow his standards and directions. The term has been borrowed by many who can't even tell a Japanese word from a Korean one to come to mean head teacher or something close. The lack of knowledge of the term (unlike "sushi") allows them to both impress people with its exoticness and also give a definition they desire.



Soke boards don't all use the term soke, but they do pretend to certify people as the heads of their own art. The whole idea of an outside organization being better able to certify you than your own teacher is just silly to serious martial artists. Speaking for myself, if my teacher won't certify me, I can't imagine why I should listen to a bunch of guys who get together for a dinner once a year, wear funny outfits and call each other master. If I am going to be independent and break with my teacher in the name of freedom and doing my own thing, then I don't see why I should drop one set of chains for another. Either I stay with my system or teacher or I am not going to be bound by the judgment of people who have never seen me and may not know the first thing about what I do.



At its basic level, a soke board is nothing more than a group of people that get together to give each other legitimacy. Say, five guys get together and form an organization that claims to judge and certify martial arts ability. The organization then certifies all of them as masters. When asked why they are masters, they can point to the certification of the organization. When asked what makes the soke board fit to judge others, they can point to the large number of masters on its board. This is helped by the fact that there are several soke boards, so it is not quite as obvious as this. It takes quite a bit of digging to follow the trail around and back to the source. And members frequently trade high ranks with each other. A person might found an art, or claim to be certified in one. He gives rank to several people. They give him rank. If ever asked what qualified him to create his own art, he can point to the high rank he has from other masters as proof of his skill.



The image that soke boards try to present is one of a group of skilled people with high standards. So a shallow search by means of the internet will not set off alarms to the typical mother looking for a class for her kids. But rarely is there any checking of facts or qualifications. In one case, a soke board stated that it required the fee (of course), two pictures and a video tape of the person submitting an application for review. Some jokers on a mailing list sent in the application, fee, one photo of an Asian man, another of a caucasian female and a video tape of "Debbie Does Dallas" and received their certificate from the organization. The only thing they are certain was looked at was the check they sent in.



Another thing some soke boards do is give free membership to respected martial artists without them asking, and then add their photo to the membership lists on the internet. People like Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and others do not need to associate with some of these groups and they never asked to be members. They are usually not given a chance to turn down membership either. But the typical karate mother thinks that because their photo is on a web site that the group is elite indeed. And she thinks others on the web site are in the same category when they are not.



The second type of wall candy are groups that pass themselves off as professional organizations. Understand that it would be quite legal for me to set up an organization called "The International Anti-Terrorist Training Association" and start charging people money to join. They would get a certificate of membership, their name listed on the web page and maybe access to an on- line forum and a slim newsletter sent by e-mail every few months. I do not have to actually have ever taught elite anti- terrorist units to do so, nor would any of the members. The same rules go for soke boards. So it is best to be careful of impressive- sounding organizations listed on the instructor's resume.



- Any mention of a hall of fame. Black Belt Magazine came up with a hall of fame and that is pretty much respected. But there are hundreds, if not thousands of other martial arts halls of fames set up by soke boards. The main requirement to be named, "Knife fighting teacher of the year" is a check that clears the bank. This is one of the easiest things to find when talking about red flags.



-More Asian than Asia.



One big warning sign should be if things look almost like a parody of what you think life in the orient is like. Students who have to bow before talking to a teacher, use only certain terms to address them and maybe a studio that even has a gong are all things that would keep me away from it.



I live in Japan and have trained here for a long time. There is respect towards teachers and things that are expected of students, such as cleaning the dojo after class. But it is no where near the worship that I have seen go on in some American schools of questionable lineage. I would be wary of groups that use a lot of asian words where perfectly good English words already exist. If there is a board of advisors, call them that instead of "Karo"- a term not in use in Japan for over a hundred years. If the students are required to get the teacher coffee or other chores, you are probably dealing with a cult. It is best to stay away.



-Pictures of celebrities provided as some sort of legitimizer.



As I said, many famous martial artists have their picture taken with others when asked. These can be very valuable memories. But they should be treated in the same ways as pictures of friends and family that are also full of memories. If there is even a hint that all the respected people on the wall would support the teacher you should stay away. No one with any integrity would even try that. They may have a photo of their teachers to honor them- but never a gallery of photos that might lead others to assume that he associates and is approved by the best.



-Talk of being warriors, samurai, or ninja instead of just learning the art.



Today a lot of people throw out the word "warrior" to mean a lot of things other than someone who fights in a war. I feel it is used a little too freely. But it is probably not a bad thing overall. The problem I have seen is when schools try to lure students with the idea of being some sort of warrior. Unless you are joining the military or police, you don't need to live a life dedicated towards war. You need to learn how to defend yourself from more realistic attackers like muggers or enraged motorists. Maybe you just want a hobby and a means of improving yourself in addition to self defense. You don't need to be a warrior monk.



The samurai and ninja are dead, as dead as European knights. If people are using the idea of making you one, or use them as terms for ranks, it is a very scary red flag. These schools are not realistic representations of schools that teach samurai arts; they are cults that prey on the desire of some people to be more than a member of the mundane world. Certain schools seem to use the image of a samurai as part of their advertising, but are clear that they are teaching samurai arts like swordsmanship and not making you a samurai yourself. On the other hand, some very dangerous martial arts cults have the idea of making their members ninja or samurai central to their image and means of attracting impressionable young students. It works because people want a sense of adventure at a young age. They don't want to be just a part time clerk as they go to community college; they want to be ninjas in training. The groups that attract these types and feed their fantasies are not what serious people want to deal with.



- A lot of talk of mysticism and super powers.



I have seen things I can't explain. That does not mean there is no explanation somewhere. In a lot of cases, things I thought were real turned out to be parlor tricks. There are arts like Taiji and Aikido that believe there is a power that is yet understood by western science that they try to cultivate. However they do not make a big deal of it. It is like air to them. It's something that they need- but not the purpose of training. They do not do exercises to build up their power so that they can toss people across the room without touching them. They do not try to say that "Ki lightning bolts" can save them in a fight. Instead of talk of these powers, beginners are told to concentrate on good posture and basic moving skills.



But people like the idea of mystic power available to them. And those that seek the admiration of people can cater to that. Just like the talk of being a warrior instead of a student in a mini mall studio, too much catering to the fantasies of youngsters about mystic power is a sign of possible trouble. Remember that there is a million dollar reward for anyone who can prove a form of mystic power under controlled conditions. If the people that really insist that they can do mystic powers and teach you to as well were able to do so, wouldn't they like a million dollars instead of collecting the training fees they are now? If a school has exercises on how to read other people's minds, they are moving away from a reality you want to be in.



If anything like these points come to your attention, it is best to check on the credentials of the teacher leading the class. It is very difficult for people who do not speak Japanese or know the differences between the Edo period and the Kamakura period to note the problems with the story of an art that supposedly came from Japan. But if the teacher claims to have lived in Japan they should be able to prove that. Stick with what you yourself can check and what the teacher himself experienced and do not be led astray by distractions if they get thrown in your way. If they are, that is only more reason to no do anything until the history of the teacher can be confirmed.



Checking on the teacher before you question his credentials in person might be a good idea. Even if you have no reason to suspect anything, a little knowledge is never a bad idea. And if it is a scam, you might avoid some trouble from some of the crazier frauds by just never going back. The internet can be your friend in this. But don't just punch the name of the art and the teacher into a search engine. You will probably only get web sites run by them at the top of the search.



Instead, consider joining martial arts message boards like e-budo.com, Budoseek.net and Martialtalk.com. Registration for all three is free. Once you are on, you can use the search function to find the name of the art or the teacher. If there are any problems with the story, it has probably been talked about before. There are people on all three of those boards that live in Asian countries train in martial arts and read the language. If there is something fishy, they will be in a position to know.



Mind you, frauds and their followers can join these boards as well. But if there is a problem, the general tone of the members outside of a few will probably be pretty obvious. If there is any debate at all, you have reason to be suspicious. And then you have a right to ask for confirmation on your own. Take the time to know the general situation and check on the past threads of people joining the conversation. A person who posts on a variety of subjects and seems to be respected by others is probably not someone there just to tear down a rival teacher or defend a fraud.

The sad fact is that there are a lot of people involved in martial arts now with shady histories. People that get into martial arts to feed their ego have a need to get others to note them, so they are more active in promotion and you are more likely to become aware of them than the guys that keep a low profile and teach only a few others out of the love of the art. But even so, frauds are still only a minority in the martial arts. And in most cases, there probably is not a reason to bother checking the credentials of the teacher. If the web site you find deals with class descriptions instead of the resume of the teacher, you probably are not dealing with a fraud. If you are invited to sit down and watch a class and the teacher talks about the benefits of studying martial arts rather than its secret history, you are probably on safe ground. But if anything sets off even a little suspicion in you, it is always best to check things out. Lives have been ruined by frauds, on occasion people have died. There are plenty of good teachers out there so you don't have to settle for a fraud.

Here are some tidbits I found in the interview in the 2-2000 issue of Hiden magazine with Hatsumi sensei. I did not translate the whole article, since I can read them anyways. I was just trying to make sure I could find certain things when looking for the source later.

He started martial arts in second grade with kendo.

Next year, he started judo.

After the war there was a time when Japanese budo was prohibited and he took lessons from a "famous boxer" named Jim.

Trained in Shinden ryu jujutsu, then started training with Ueno for three years. He got "Dai" in Tenshin Shinto ryu and Asayama Ichiden ryu from Ueno.

Would leave on the overnight train Saturday night, arrive and train with Takamatsu all day, then go home on the Sunday night red eye.

There were many people who only exchanged letters with Takamatsu and even recieved makimono from him, but he was the only real student at the end. He was the only one claiming to be a student of Takamatsu who was there at the funeral and signed the guest book.

After teaching the basic kata, Takamatsu sensei would move into various variations and applications that day.

Like densho, kata are not meant to be understood unless you have been directly taught in them. To understand kata you need Kuden, Shinden (heart transmission) and taiden (body transmision.)

My Bujinkan teachers in Japan always stress that this art was built around the reality of weapons. We use them, we train to go against them and even though we do unarmed stuff most of the time, there is always a connection with weapons. This art was not meant to be used at a tournament. And in Japan, a entire class openly carried twin swords.

I have been thinking of something for a long time and kind of want to throw it out here.

The following is a work by Darren Laur on the knife. http://members.shaw.ca/tmanifold/edged_weapon.htm Most shocking is the following section.


Quote: "I'm a big believer in, "don't tell me, show me" so in early 1992 I conducted an empirical video research study. I had 85 police officers participate in a scenario based training session where unknown to them they would be attacked with a knife. The attacker, who was dressed in a combative suit, was told that during mid way of the contact, they were to pull a knife that they had been concealing, flash it directly at the officer saying "I'm going to kill you pig" and then engage the officer physically. The results were remarkable: - 3/85 saw the knife prior to contact - 10/85 realized that they were being stabbed repeatedly during the scenario - 72/85 did not realize that they were being assaulted with a knife until the scenario was over, and the officers were advised to look at their uniforms to see the simulated thrusts and slices left behind by the chalked training knives."

Please note that these were police officers who are used to detecting trouble and consider the fact that people may use weapons on them. And they probably have some experience with real fighting and unarmed training sessions. Add in the fact that this was only a training session and not as stressful as a real fight. Despite the fact that someone made an effort to flash the knife during the scenario, only 3 out of 85 could tell that the guy had one before it was used on them.

So I take this to mean that there really is no "Unarmed" techniques in self defense. By that I mean you can't have something you would do if the guy has a knife and something else that you would do if he did not have one. Because you probably will not be able to tell if he has one or not. And this is not even taking into account the idea that the guy may not show you the knife before he uses it on you.

Kelly McMann, writing as Jim Grover, lists the following techniques being taught in today's prisons that all revolve around the idea of hiding the knife before sticking it in the other guy; The Smash and Slash, The Jailyard, The Jackknife and the Slap and Tap. In fact, the only technique he mentions that does not hide the knife is called Bulldogging. You can read about them on page 163-165 of his book, "Street Smarts, Firearms and Personal Security."

These are the slang terms given to these techniques in prison. So they are known and practiced by criminals. If you are talking about self defense you can't ignore the reality that the most likely to try to kill you with a knife are training so that they make you think they don't have a knife.

So I think we can throw out the idea that you can go into a battle in either a 'unarmed' or 'armed' mindset. The law and morality will not let you treat a guy who throws punches at you with the same amount of force that you would if you knew he had a knife. But you can't treat him as if he were just going to try to punch you. You have to assume that he may have a weapon and will pull it at some point- if it is not already hidden in his hand.

So far, a lot of folks may be asking what is the point. All of this may be something you have heard already. But my point is that a lot of artists seem to look at combat like it was a tennis match. You throw something, then maybe the other guys throws something.

Well, when I look at Hatsumi I see pool. To be more exact, I see Hatsumi as a pool shark. Once he has the shot, the other guy never gets a chance to make another. He clears the table and the other guy is just along for the ride. If they guy has a knife, he never gets to use the thing. He can't touch Hatsumi with anything. Hatsumi controls his entire body so that a hand of the other guy can't reach him. For unarmed stuff, a guy who can scratch you, and not much else, is not a credible threat. But if the guy has hidden a knife in his hand, then that scratch can kill. Hatsumi does not let him get that hand anywhere near him.

But I see a lot of Bujinkan folks that seem to be doing taijutsu as if it were a tennis match. Instead of luring in a committed attack and then taking control of the guy (or gaining distance away from the guy), it is a case of give and take. And you don't want to do that with a knife. In some cases I see Bujinkan members allow touches to them that can't do much damage as long as it is merely an unarmed situation. But as I said, you can't assume that you will know that it is an unarmed situation.

So I think more Bujinkan members should take a look at what Hatsumi does and try to watch for what I am talking about. If you look for it, it will become clear. Hatsumi is playing pool, not tennis. A guy had a knife would never be able to use it on him because he always moves in such way that he would be safe from it.

People might want to read more about knife fighting realities and how much they rely on surprise and deception by reading Marc MacYoung's web site at www.nononsenseselfdefense.com. He was also the guy who first drew contrasts with fighting and the way a pool shark works. But once you read it, and take a good, long look at Hatsumi, I really hope that I see a lot less tennis going on in the dojo.

Please note that I am not talking about using a weapon on someone else. I am talking about the fact that the other guy might have one. If you only train to go against unarmed opponents in your sparring and training, you will probably do as you have trained when you go against someone who has a knife and those habits will likely get you killed. Certain people on certain sites seem to not understand that and take it to mean that we will use weapons on someone who legally can't be attacked with a weapon. I do not know if they really do not understand, or they are trying to confuse the issue.

When you think about facing a potential knife, things change a lot. You don't want to "take" a hit to get in a better hit. If he has no weapon, great. But if you are wrong you lose big time. Instead of blocks and taking hits you probably want to think about getting off the line of attack or maybe just get the hell away from there.

And your purpose is not to defeat someone else. Your job is to survive. Ever think about running? How about not getting into trouble in the first place? When you look at how much trouble could be avoided by just walking away, it is amazing. People don't just pull a knife and attack- not often. In most cases people need to work themselves up to start a fight. During the fight they then pull the knife. What if you apologized and walked away quickly as soon as that little dance started? Yes, you may look like a pussy. You may look like you are scared. But are you going to let your fear control you? I am talking about the fear of looking like a pussy. Being scared of someone who might pull a knife is just common sense. But putting your ass on the line just so people don't think badly of you is complete idiocy and gives power to them and to your fears.

Right now in England they are having a lot of news about knife crimes. Part of the problem, according to a friend of mine on the police there, is that it is considered "cool" to be carrying a knife. They keep trying certain bans to stop the problem, but until the perception among young idiots change, they are not going to do much.

Maybe this will not happen in America. We do have guns. But guns tend to lift things up to the criminal level if you are caught with them. Many knives could be passed off as tools if it becomes a problem with police, but still fill the posturing fantasy of unstable young bozos. And even if it is not popular to carry a knife, you may still hit the lottery so to speak.

If you go up against someone who only trains for unarmed, one on one attacks, has about the same amount of training time and his techniques-strategy reflect this outlook then you will probably fail against him when playing to his strengths. But if you face a knife without being prepared for it you will lose a lot more than against the unarmed guy.