God how I wish I were born in the 60’s or 70’s. There is nothing that would be more fun than being an able bodied adult male during the height of Bruce Lee’s career. And I don’t mean and adult male in California or anywhere in the vicinity of the actual Bruce Lee. I’m talking, somewhere in Tallahassee, Anchorage, Cleveland. I’m talking about not being around any JKD or any Martial Arts school’s yet still telling people I’m a disciple of the art. Me setting up a gym in a garage, sparring with friends, Beating up kids. Watching the movies and stating that I’m an expert. God I would have loved that. But it has to be Kung-Fu or Jeet Kune Do. Just because it would be funnier. I mean isn’t that what happened? Didn’t a bunch of people just open schools up and made themselves a grand master? That’s awesome. Pure and simple. AWESOME!
HETAST JUST NU
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However, I wasn’t born then. I was born in the 80’s. Which did give me the opportunity to watch Royce Gracie (much smaller than the Atomic Bomb popularity that was Bruce Lee) And in watching Royce Gracie, much like every jerk in Michigan (a state known for some of the greatest boxer’s in history) I was positive I was a submission grappler. Didn’t we all? When we watched Royce Gracie or Kazushi Sakuraba, didn’t we start grappling everywhere with everyone? Surprisingly not breaking anyone’s arm in the process. I still have scars from grappling on the astro turf of an indoor tennis court. (wonder why I didn’t get a lot of girls in college… weird…) But we were all doing it. We were all experts.
Later I realized I didn’t know anything. And had to actually learn how to grapple. However, it is with that humbling experience of getting my lunch eaten daily if not weekly that I am extremely humble. You won’t hear stories of me getting drunk and starting a fight. I generally just buy someone a beer and ask them to hang out with me. However the more popular MMA get’s it seems the more experts appear out of no where.
My favorite story is one my instructor Perry Huack told me. Him, Rey Diogo and Koda were watching a fight and enjoying some dinner. The guys at the table next to them were having a few drinks and getting hyper about the fights on TV. Keep in mind, Perry is a black belt. Koda is a black belt. And Rey Diogo, that man is the truth! He’s a world champion 4th degree black belt (Perry and Koda are actually his students) anyway, while watching the fights the drunk guys started screaming, as drunk guys often do. Deciding to let other people know what he would do and what he is capable of, ”ARMBAR! He needs to ARMBAR. Is he retarded. I would arm bar that mother fucker if I were him!”. He starts yelling at Koda ”Arm bar right!” Koda very politely and respectfully replied. ”Actually, he can’t. His hip was pinned down, so he wouldn’t be able to elevate the arm to a point of isolation. Without that he can’t hyper extend it…” The drunk guy cut him off, ”You don’t know shit man!” At that point, Rey smiled, and said your right my friend. And they moved.
Imagine what had happened had they handled that differently, had they took offense?
Similar to that, I was teaching my friend Greg Muay Thai. A little bit of back ground on me. I was trained by Joesph Del Real for years(California Kickboxing Academy, and now Fight Academy, I recommend him to ANYONE!) There are a million people more qualified to teach than me, but with Joe’s blessing I applied for a job to teach a bag class. Not training fighters, but getting people in shape through Muay Thai. A friend of mine wanted to learn Muay Thai and get in shape, so I happily worked out with him. After learning to punch and kick he started feeling tough. After a month or so he started to look better as well. And with that comes confidence. Greg was out with his girlfriend one night and some guy gave him the stink eye and all a sudden he is calling me saying he is about to crush some guy. I of course, pleaded with him not to start a fight, as there are few actual reasons to fight. I promised him I would explain the following day. And I did. The explanation went a bit like this. I asked him to set the clock for a minute. He questioned why, since we had been sparring lightly for 5 minute rounds at that point. I said, we were going to go a bit harder today, so a minute will suffice. We had been grappling and sparring for 5 or so weeks at this point, so he knew what to expect. The time started, and within seconds I did an ankle pick, put him on his back, went to full mount and gave him light yet jarring punches for the remaining 50 seconds. It was his first real humbling experience. At the end of it, I had explained to him. I’m a little squirreling guy, I’m always smiling and more or less always happy. Actually most people assume I’m gay. Had we been fighting and I were throwing elbows and were not wearing gloves. You would not look the same anymore. You would be disfigured with scars for the rest of your life (similar to Jared Leto in fight club) because some guy looked at you funny? Now, maybe you win that fight. But, should he be potentially disfigured because of nothing? No one deserves it.
Yet, that’s where we are headed isn’t it. And it’s actually scary. NFL, NBA and MLB all have spectators that are experts. Knocking over the con queso dip as they scream from their couch about what so and so should have done, how they would have done this or that. Right now, that type of fan is growing in MMA. I can’t walk down the street without seeing some jerk with big arms and a pot belly wearing a UFC shirt. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m happy there are fans. I’m happy fighters are making more, and the sport is gaining acceptance. However, with that comes the downside of popularity. Everyone all a sudden knows better than a trained athlete. And they are willing to fight you over disagreeing. This of course doesn’t happen everywhere. While at a UFC 127 in Newark the head of security of the Prudential center was telling me that not a lot of fights happen at these events. His reason. You have no idea who you are fighting. Could be a teammate or a coach. Could be anyone.
I think they don’t because they just paid 100 bucks for a ticket and don’t want to be kicked out. Fights always happen in parking lots, not venue’s, unless it’s a mosh pit. That’s just a long, long fight though. With lots of shoulder checking. However if you go to stadiums where they sell cheap tickets, such as $10 nose bleed tickets, those people don’t care if they get ejected. If you look on youtube for longer than 20 seconds you can find a dodger fan stabbing someone. Fantastic!
I have to wonder, what would you do? When a late 30’s and or frat boy with a popped collar who hasn’t even seen the inside of a gym. Has not idea what it smells like. Tells you that you need to watch your mouth around him or else!
Then what? How do we react going forward. Again, I am extremely happy that the sport is gaining acceptance. But with all the good, also comes all the bad. The unfortunate side of being widely accepted is all the knuckleheads your letting into the party.
Derek Dean
