Every so often Hollywood will squat down, take a huge dump and put it on screen as an American martial arts movie. Normally these feature a good looking white or black dude whooping ass, banging Asian chicks and saying cute one-liners. Although onscreen everyone fears the man, the audience as a whole is so sobered to this cliche that we almost laugh at him. Now we all know life imitates art (or vice versa) so the “coolness” of being a badass fantasy fighter has spawned a few McDojos (as I like to call them, since their schools are probably as false as they are) who aim to impress the ignorant on their skills.

Okay, I swear – the next pasty, fat, blowhard that comes up to me and lies about his martial arts accolades will probably have to cover his face as I literally explode out of frustration. I understand that in this age of quick fixes, microwave dinners and Mixed Martial Arts, everyone claims to be Bruce Lee just by watching a movie or two. To jokingly say you can whip somebody’s ass is one thing but to go on and on about pressure points, your multiple black belts and some book you’re reading when it’s quite obvious from your bragging and lack of everything including athletic ability that it is a BLANTANT LIE. Who are you fooling McDojo? Seriously? Real Martial Artists are shamed by you, you slap us in the face because we train for years doing something we love and here you are belittling the effort through lying.

The last McDojo I ran into was a chubby kid working at a Chinese Fast Food restaurant. The kid couldn’t be any older than 17 and he was going on and on to his co-worker, who he was no doubt Asian Fetishizing over, telling her he has black belts in 10 different disciplines… WHAT? I thought I heard him wrong, but then he sees the Iron Fighter Phillipines on my t-shirt (a video game event) and mistakes it for an MMA shirt. He then proceeds to prod me about how long I’d trained in MMA etc. So me being the smartass that I am, answered him in the worst way I could “Mixed Martial Arts is an entertainment fad, it isn’t a martial art. I’m a real fighter, not an MMA fighter.” This prompted him to walk out from behind the counter… expecting a fight, I set myself to restrain the kid (I figured I could roll him over my hip and lock him down till he cried uncle), but he walks out to me and extends a hand saying “let me shake your hand sir” as he adjusted his glasses. It seemed he was feeling me on my disdain for MMA, the whole thing felt bizarre.

As I talked to him following the handshake, it dawned on me that he might have trained, or is training in a discipline but I was angry at his need to pad his resume just to score some Asian tail. The latter was obviously not his only intent however based on my second visit to the place,when he had another guy cornered, bragging about his 10 black belts. Now this is a young guy so I chalk it up to him loving the martial arts and being a bit obsessed, but I have met a whole host of 30+, broken down, wannabe’s sprouting out to the ignorant masses about the amount of black belts they have etc. Ya we may not care so much, but yes McDojo, YOU ARE ANNOYING. Nobody wants to hear about the fantasy black belts you have in random styles and how you can jump over a guy like a video game. For you readers who don’t know, a black belt or claim of several black belts does not a badass make you. Many “black belts” as in people who cut their teacher a check and showed up for a few years to be rewarded one – will still lose to random, battle-hardened, hay-maker throwing thug from the street. So why brag, I wonder?

Fake Martial Arts Guy, please do us a favor – go to a real dojo (not Jim Bob’s Tae Kwon Do Emporium), learn some discipline, and for the love of god HUMILITY then kindly rethink your life. You bring shame to anyone who has legitimately trained in a gi.

Written by Greg Dragon on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 

Filed under Everybody Hates You
Tagged with annoyance, blowhard, fetish, martial artists, mixed martial arts