Originally Posted by
frank-theman-james
Recently I was on Facebook and one of my friends had posted a video of his instructor, a Royce Gracie purple belt, teaching how to break the lockdown. Being a 10th planet fan, I watched. As usual, he has a white belt put him in the lockdown and he begins his narrative on the how to's, and he easily passes. But what bothered me was that his uki just layed there and did nothing. He looked like a virgin on prom night. Sooo, I jumped on with my comment saying that here on eastern NC, we don't have a 10th planet school and hence his familiarity with the lockdown and other aspects of 10th planet system were limited and as he testified that he had beaten the lockdown in competition locally, the chance of him beating the lockdown was probably due to the same thing, inexperienced. I went on to say if he wanted to get to know the system to come to my seminar with guest instructor Neale hoerle. Well let me say my approach in retrospect sounded arrogant. And as soon as the first response came in, I realized how it could be perceived that way and I quickly responded with an apology to the instructor in the video as I knew him and gave a more thorough explanation of my point. Before I could get my reply posted, the Guy who assumed I was blasting the video was the video guys instructor, and someone I had rolled with a couple of years ago, a rgjj brown belt and very talented, had posted two more short post calling me a fraud and claiming that I had never competed in mma and furthermore a juijitsu tournament. He went on and even went as far as to say several other things that weren't true about me on some events in my personal life that he heard through rumors, all to discredit my critique of his student. I openly wrote that while he was entitled to his opinion, I was going to beat his ass when I saw him for the lies and attacking me the way he did on Facebook. His reply was for me and him to have a grappling match and settle it that way, which was echoed by several of his students along with insults. I told him no, I wanted the pleasure of beating his ass in the middle of the street with no rules and no ref. Which again was followed by insults. Here I was defending myself against all of these people all because they were friends with this Guy and didn't know me, as you can imagine as this forum can be unforgiving at times. I gave a listing of all the belts that I have in the different styles of martial arts, even being a white belt in the 10th planet working on my blue, which according to Neale is close (I hope) and that's when I caught hell from every direction. They dismissed my purple in jjj, they dismissed my purple in nubjj, and my black and two browns in three other traditional forms of karate, and they simply focused on a white belt telling a purple belt his technique was flawed and a brown belt he was going to kick his ass. The smartass comments flew in over and over.
Now let me explain something, first of all I'm 42 years old and I'm an old school street fighter that is 6'6" and 245 lbs. of don't give a shit attitude. I say what I want because with my size, 25 years of martial arts, and a lifetime of fighting in real life situations, I'm not scared of no man on this earth. I have been shot, stabbed, cut, and beaten on by you name it. I have been jumped and left for dead. I have been shocked back to life twice. I have competed in hundreds of sport karate tournaments, as recently as the first of this year. I'm not claiming to be Superman, but not a pussy either, if you follow me. And most importantly, I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to accept a grappling match with a superior opponent. That's like putting a college team against a pro team. Also after being so publicly insulted, I'm not in a friendly match sort of mind.
So I'll get to my point. I was ridiculed and talked shit to by every kid and adult that this Guy was friends with and discredited as irrelevant because I didn't have the experience to say what I said. My point being that in eastern NC, and up to a few Mons ago, unless you traveled 400 miles to the closest 10th planet school which was Kevin's in bear Delaware, the chances of running into someone executing the 10th planet system correctly were slim, and furthermore, teaching passes based of those inferior applications, would probably be better done after having a chance to experience the system by someone who is certified in the system. Right? And I was told every answer under the sun as to why 10th planet wasn't juijitsu to I still didn't know what I was talking about. They posted videos of the Guy competing and sure enough, the Guy does the lockdown ... or tries. He was in his knee joint and nowhere near his calf, he didn't try to stretch him out, and most importantly, he failed to get double unders. He basically used the lockdown as a leg trap and layed there while the video guy worked a foot in no hands pass, and after a couple of minutes he released his lockdown trap and went to just a grapevine squeeze which the video guy passed. Which made his lockdown break technique not even because by his own video proof, it wasn't a lockdown he broke but just a squeeze. Which I pointed out as proof to my point all along, and yet I still didn't know what I was talking about because of my inexperience, which is my point here. If I am the only guy in the conversation who has actually trained with certified instructor in 10th planet jj, am I more experienced than someone who hasn't but has trained in another grappling style? And it dawned on me that mentality that I had been handed down directly from the Gracie's themselves. Listen to any interview with any Gracie and even after a defeat, they still talk around there own shortcomings.
God bless master Eddie and his humble approach to his art and its ability to grow even beyond himself. I hope one day that I do something so special that it will be given a name and added to the ever growing system that is 10th planet.
