Uechi-Ryu.com

Count Dante is a familiar name in the short history of the MA in the USA. From about 1965 to his death in 1975 he was regarded as the black sheep of American karate.
He started out as a promising karateka in Robert Trias' "United States Karate Association" and he was an important figure in the early development of karate in America's Midwest. However, after he left (or was expelled from) Trias' organisation it was felt that he had "gone wrong". He set up his own system and as Massad Ayoob has written, " developed an obscene fascination with the most brutal part of the martial arts."

Dante promoted America's first full contact tournament as far back as 1967, sold his booklet " The world's Deadliest Fighting Secrets" with the assistance of a big, over the top advertising campaign in comics and magazines and generally tried to put himself over as "The Crown Prince of Death".

His style was designed specifically for street combat and so this may simply be a reflection of how society itself has grown more violent over the years. Unfortunately, little technical material has been printed on the Dante style, but basically it seems to be a close quarters system (The legs are mainly for transportation, Dante would say) which stress smashing, gouging, and joint breaking techniques. Even more than technique however, Count Dante stressed the importance of attitude. Page 12 of his book (1968) reads: ...


" ...Special note: Proper emphasis on courage, aggressiveness, and actual training hall and street application of effective fighting techniques, is the most serious lacking segment in modern day karate and kung fu schools... most karate schools place little emphasis on courage or "guts fighting" and aggressiveness and usually even frown on it. They also do not permit body contact in their self-defence and sparring practice. This makes for a safe training hall but does little to help develop the body to withstand strike punishment and actually hinders the student when they are forced to use it on the street.
Remember, the only true test of a fighting man is what he can do, and no more. Form practice, sparring, self defence practice and brick breaking are meaningless if the man cannot withstand the burden of the 'real thing'..."

[The backbone of the Dante system was his emphasis on mental attitude. In contrast with many Oriental concepts of "mind like placid lake"..."Mind like the moon", of being calm, cleaning the mind of all thought and emotion prior to combat, Dante believed that you should 'psych' yourself up with 100% aggressiveness and viciousness, attacking in a furious and unrestrained manner. In 'Defense Combat' Oct 1976, Bill Aguair was asked to define the Dante system and how it differed from other systems.

"It isn't the techniques of the system, it's the attitude - and that is a 7 to 10 second drive to the wall, completely going in for one thing and one thing only - to get the opponent down and out and everything over as quickly as possible."
Dante then advocated attacking (or counter attacking) at full speed, exploding at the enemy with total ruthlessness and ferocity. Again Aguair has some sage advice.

"A streetfight is something quick, it doesn't last 11 minutes. A fight in the street is one jam. People don't break it up into rounds, you know... If you're gonna swing, you either do that, go all the way or don't do anything at all. I'm not advocating fighting at the drop of a hat, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. I mean it, it doesn't take much for you to throw a kick and try to pull it so you don't hurt somebody bad, and then the guy catches your leg and knocks you down - your head hits the kerbstone and now you've got a widow! The streets are pretty bad!" (Defense Combat - Oct 1976)
In line with Dante's ideas on situational self-defence, he would train people to fight in barstools and members of his school would smoke cigarettes and drink beer because, well, that's what they'd probably be doing if a fight started.
Unlike many people who practise the MA and develop new theories as regards self defence, Dante's

He set up his own system and as Massad Ayoob has written, " developed an obscene fascination with the most brutal part of the martial arts."

I also heard that GEM-Sensei (along with Trias, Parker, Mirikian, Jhoon Rhee and other such greats of the time) were all at the very first "World Karate Championship" in the early 60s that was put on by Keehan. Comments GEM-Sensei?

Mas Tsuruoka was also there (standing next to GEM in above photo) At the Nova Scotia camp years ago I was very impressed by the gentleman. Humble and without question is worthy of mention.

that was my first introduction to the concept of there always being someone out there who has your number...

While I don't have first-hand knowledge, I have heard that similar things happened (tho not on such a scale or with such violence) in other parts of the country... even Boston. Perhaps Van-Sensei or GEM-Sensei can let us know if there was any truth to those rumors.