At our goju school we have integrated groundfighting,have for the last few years since my old instructor retired. Randy,my instructor,has a good wrestling and jujitsu background. He has been showing me and teaching groundfighting,I like it alot,however,our retired instructor is totally against it. In his words,"I thought I told yall about that wrestling sh1t! Better cut it out. " Well,this presents a dilema and we are more or less hiding it from him. I have great respect for the man ,as a matter of fact I love him dearly,if it weren't for him I wouldn't be where I am.He's the best fighter I have ever known! Things that he could do would astonish you. He was more dedicated and trained harder than anyone I have ever known. But don't I have a right to train at whatever range I feel necesaary? Is he just being close minded or am I being disrespectful? I'm confunkled...

You have the right to fight at whatever range you want. If he doesn't want you to learn wrestling, then why should you learn Karate? He's being too narrow minded, thinking that if wrestling is taught, Karate will be too dissolved and will turn into something MMA'ish. Don't worry, just keep it up. What can he do? Debarr you from the dojo for learning wrestling? Debarr you for learning how to strengthen Karate's weakness? Debarr you for learning something everyone else knows and will use against you?

Tell him, that you want to learn to better your karate.

-Taison out

Brian -

You have to do what you need to, in order to grow. You haven't let anything stop you this far.

If you are enjoying the ground work and you find that it is balancing you as a martial artist then I think you are on the right track. It sounds like you respect this man a lot and by hiding it eventually it will come out and he'll be hurt that you are hiding it. I don't have any answers for you really Brian but maybe you can sit down with him and discuss why he feels that you should not take up the ground game. Then explain why you are taking it such as enjoying it, by learning it then you are better able to defend from it, it is making you a more balanced Martial Artis, etc.

I can understand how you feel in a way. When this grappling thing came up I wasn't sure I wanted to do it. Sure I love the ground work but I wasn't sure I'd like the competing part. I did not have the "balls" to tell my instructor right out that I did not want to do it ... though in the final days I did talk about my fears. I did it, and was scared, but I pulled through it and ended up loving it. A couple of days afterwards I did get the balls and told him and he said if I would have decided not to compete he would have been fine with that and I should never feel like I have to do something. He just figured that I would like to as he had seen my passion ... and in the end he was right. Mine has a happy ending and hopefully in the end yours will as well. We never want to disappoint those we respect and care about which makes it hard to talk to them about stuff like this as you don't want to loose anything with them. And let me tell you Brian, with your signature saying I was going to be victorious ... I also did not want to let you down and also pushed me to go forward ... not to mention all of the support of the people I respect on this forum (you know who you are).

So you can keep hiding it and maybe he will never find out but it may eat at you, or you can discuss it face to face. You respect this man so continue to give him this respect and let him know this. And if he is as good a person that you think he is then he should also give that respect back. He doesn't have to agree with it but he should at least respect your decision.

So good luck with this one Brian and let us know what you decide.

Difficult one,

However if you rate and respect the man so much its something that needs to be discussed sensibly and openly, im assuming you still view him as a Sensei of yours?

Personally I agree with him, and as such have a minamum groundfighting element in my karate (3 bits in fact, shoot tactics, mount tactics and being kicked when down tactics, all center around not getting battered and getting up quick ), trained soley for self defence, and I love to groundfight?

Im under no illusions that if im faced in a standoff against a good grappler and I go down then im in serious trouble, but common methods of assault dont factually support this as happening to often outside of what I descibe.

As such I train ALOT of standup grappling (Tegumi), to not go to ground.

im babbling................

Quote:

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However if you rate and respect the man so much its something that needs to be discussed sensibly and openly, im assuming you still view him as a Sensei of yours?

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It's more than that,he's like a father to me as well as a teacher.
I will try to discuss this with him the next time he's in town. He works out of state for weeks at a time. I think he has the same views you do. He says Randy lets his background influence what he taught him too much. He wants nothing to do with it.
I'm also an instructor there 2nd dan,Randy is 4thdan and we have a few students who I'm obligated to,so I can't nor would I just leave. I've been training with these guys half my life and I knew them when I was very young.They're family,and so goes family strife.
I'll keep this matter updated. First I'll talk with Randy.

There are TWO halves of fighting. One half is striking of some form and the other half is wrestling of some form.

Would you be content to know only one half?



-John

Proberly best all three of you get together and discuss it Brian, after all your all adults..........

Failing that have a scrap and see what works best

Brian,

"Happy families are all alike: every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"


Soner or later you will offend this "father". If he is half the man you think he is, it will only be half as bad as you imagine.

I had a talk with Randy tonight about this situation and we are in agreement. He said that's what Dale knew and could do,he had a one punch ko and 99% of the time he could hit you.
Randy said we should be open to all ideas and in order for the school to grow our students need to be better than us eventually,that's how it is.
He said when Dale comes out we'll work the katas,standup,etc,but it's pretty much his school now so it's his responsibility to teach how he sees fit. I agree.
Thus ends the saga!

Good to hear Brian.