Very true Panther…. the 50's, 60s, & early 70s were tough on any practitioner because of the almost constant overt or covert challenges as a dojo owner, teacher and competitor. Some 'sparring matches' were closer to real fights than not.
Then there were schools that promoted 'thuggery' in their students' cluster.
One dire example of this was at the Madison Square Garden once, during one of the All American Championships… where some group just would not take defeat on the floor and threatened us to 'catch up' down in the locker room for a real fight.
I recall a group of us banding together for safety as we went down the narrow locker rooms to shower and dress…
I saw one competitor walking around in a daze with one eyeball hanging out….then a full scale riot broke out on the floor amongst the various NY dojos fighting for supremacy…I saw police officers just scoot out of the place…they were smart enough to just let the idiots kill each other.
I have to smile at Panther's 'psychological box' trick he pulled on that jerk.
There are so many stories to tell…
One night we had a TKD wise ass show up at George's dojo wanting to kick ass. So Taro Tanaka, visiting from Japan, a real bad ass karate 'street fighter'…took him on…punched him in the throat and dragged him over the fire-escape so he could throw him down the street.
It took five of us to stop Taro.
I think the main problem with these guys was that although they all professed to know 'real fighting' none of them really had an idea of real street violence and were oblivious to the dangers of challenging karate students in their own house.
Incidents of 'dojo beatings' for some of these jerks were common…even in Okinawa…service men would have their asses handed to them in some dojo…when going in to challenge.
We had one real nut case…. who used to write on our forums….suffer the same fate in a NY Uechi dojo.
When will people learn.
