It’s
over, I’m walking toward the other side of the gym, the table with sparring
equipment and uniforms is right in front of me. The guy behind the table said
that was incredible, I can’t believe how fast it happened. The man I just took
down to the floor made a mistake and called me cheater, as a referee I made a
call. You can disagree but you can’t say I cheated. During the action one of
the fighters didn’t stop and I smacked him and pulled him off, he was on top of
the other fighter. Oh the guy I smacked was one of mine. When I say stop, stop.
That’s
when one of the people in the crowd called me a cheater, I took him off his
feet and a whole bunch of people stopped me at that point. I didn’t even hit
him yet. Frustrating, stopped before the hit.
The
tournament continues, I’m still frustrated and he left the building. 5,000
people in the stands see the events continue.
Several
people in attendance we’re kind enough to say they heard the “cheater” comment
and understood my reaction.
The
little story above was part of sharing War Stories over the years with Greg
Older at Adam Older’s fortieth Birthday Party.
Victor Smith
Pat Burns is an extremely accomplished Shotokan instructor who lives
north of Philadelphia. He had trained generations of great karate-ka. When
Charles was going to seminary he trained there, and as an accomplished black
belt then, found his hands more than full with a female green belt in kumite.
Pat’s story brings one of my own to mind.
When I lived in
Pennslyvania and attended many tournaments because I taught the young in time I
was often a judge for youth kata and kumite. One day I was the center referee
at a youth division, and that meant fight after fight I was judging. Then a
fight came up where one young man who was fighting had his father sitting in
the stands outside the ring begin shouting loudly “Kill
your opponent” over and over, obnoxiously so.
He did not
stop. Finally I stopped the fighting and
announced, “This fight is over” and awarded the fight to the other young man.
Immediately the father jumped into the ring screaming ‘I
had no right to do that and I was wrong.’
I informed him
that “I would not permit anyone to scream ‘Kill’ someone at any
tournament. Karate tournaments were not
about killing.”
Of course he would not stop. Instead he ran
over to the tournament director to complain. Which caused him to come over and
see what it was about. I informed him that I would not permit anyone to act
that way and as far as I was over the father’s actions disqualified the
competitor.”
The director
looked at me, reading the expression on my face and then told me, “Correct, continue the division.”
The young man
and his father left.
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