Week-2
Fri 1/08/10
The operation on my hand was successful - my hand will be plastic support for about 10 days.
Some Tae Kwon Do studios still require breaking for promotions. And they are still giving black belts to 3-4 year old girls.
Setting history straight. To many people believe that if you tell a lie long enough people will believe it. Below is a series of True historical Facts.
1. Robert Triest (not Ed Parkers) opened the first commercial Karate studio in 1947. He has pretty good proof, because one of his first students was a member of the Arizona Supreme Court.
2. Ed Parker never had a commercial
studio while he attended BYU he taught out of an American Health Studio.
Historical Note: The chain of American Health Studios was
founded by Ray Wilson. Years later Ray Wilson would buy out Chuck Norris's
studios. Ray Wilson was one of the original driving forces behind the entire
Health Spa industry. The following link is a personal interview of Ray Wilson.
Most people even in the Health Industry do not even know who he is. I would have
many business dealings with Ray. http://www.healthytimesonline.com/archives/Wilsonpart1.htm
Tracy's was also interested in buying out Chuck Norris
and we had several business meeting with the owners. But you can see that we
were not able to compete with Ray Wilson and his $40 million dollars.
Afterwards Ray you admit it was one of his worst business decisions. Ray told me
he really believed there would be no difference between running a chain of
Karate Studios and Heath Studios. It also proved that big money could not buy
success in the Martial Arts.
3. Ed Parker never free-styled with any students!
4. Bruce Lee never free-styled with any of Ed Parkers students. Bruce did not teach Ed "Sticky Hand" nor did he ever do sticky hands with any of Ed Parkers students.
5. Ed Parkers did not teach kids - let alone give them private lessons. Ed Parker did not want any thing to do with kids. He let my brother Jim teach the kids and even let Jim keep all the money for kids.
6. James Ibrao was Ed Parkers first black belt - not Charles Beeder as many claim - Beeder did not get his black belt until 1963 as verified by Beeders son. Beeder was Ed Parker's first Brown Belt.
7. Question? Why did Ed Parker give some Dan Rankings and others only 1st Black Belt etc. The IKKA constitution calls for Instructors to have Dan Ranking: Shodan, Nidan, Sandan, Yodan - etc.
To be continued
Wed 1/06/10
I will be taking a couple of days off from the Blog - to have surgery on my right hand to fix the damage I did by years of breaking
We will also be releasing a series of new DVD' s - You will see the "Changing of the Guard" as Steve Finn and my son Mark Tracy continue the tradition of The Tracy System of Kenpo.
Warning: "Once you see one of "Steve Finn's" new Quick Reference Series - you will want all of them.
Mark Tracy is assisting me with the new 6th Black - Theory DVD - Key Kenpo Techniques - and teaching the first lesson (The most important lesson you will ever teach.
Steve Finns - DVD'S will be released in the Next week or two, There are 13 DVD'S.
We have a target date of April 1, 2010 - for release of the other DVD'S
1/04/2010
My Views on MMA (UFC), and its impact on the Martial Arts
When the uniform comes off,
the heritage and spirit of the Martial Arts dies: honor, respect, humility.
The traditional Martial Arts teaches you not to fight, unless you have to.
In the Mixed Martial Arts, too many want to hit, put the hurt on someone.
The Classic "T" shirts says it all" "TAP OUT".
The trouble is that on the street there are no referees, no time limits, no
rules. and no Tapping Out.
Too many who get into MMA come in with an attitude, they are tough until they
get hurt. Then comes the "Lawsuits"
There are dozens of MMA "T" shirts letting everyone know how tough you
are. The latest "T" shirt I saw" "Fighting solves
everything".
The Martial Arts has been on a decline
for the past 10 years. The Martial Arts reached its peak right after
"The Karate Kid" (1984) with over 40,000 schools and clubs teaching the
Martial Arts. Now it is down to about 13,000. The present recession saw
50% of all Martial Arts Studios go out of business. And many that have survived
are only part time. The typical studio now opens at 3:30 when the kids get
out of school. Many studios are force to make their money off belt testing fees and
Birthday Parties. The impact of MMA and UFC fights have NOT given the Martial
Arts a positive image. They were just one more nail in the coffin.
The general buying public (our
potential students) are turned off by the new trends of the MMA.
Now many studios, desperate to stay alive
have jumped on the MMA bandwagon. They take what they have always taught, added
a little Kick-Boxing and grappling and repackaged an old product that did not
work in the first place.
Fact: 80% of the students studying the
Martial Arts are under the age of 10. Almost all studios have found you cannot
survive teaching full time unless you have a high percentage of youth.
In desperation, studios have gone to
teaching grappling to youth. Promoters in Missouri went so far a to stage MMA
fight with kids as young a 7-8. The authorities shut them down.
It seem that every new studio that
opens, bills themselves as MMA. I personally know of no studios - that have survived
- teaching only MMA. I have watched a lot of them close down - or drastically
downsize.
_________________________________________________________
Now for the business side of the MMA - the UFC. They are having some very serious problems. At the end of this section I will give you links to 2 sites to show you just how serious their problems are.
Dana White is the front man for the
UFC but he owns only 10% of the corporation.
As a business man I admire what Dana
has done. He is a fighters fighter. He understand fighting and fighters. Also
he has made sure that the fighter are getting and honest share of the
fight money. But there only a few at the top making good money. Most are just
like "Rocky" as he described himself: "Ham and Egger"
Dana White understands his buy public and what they want. He knows how to put on
a good show. The main money does not come from the live gate. It comes from pay
TV. His audience is mainly white single males ages 18-35. The are mainly lower
middle class. They are the workers, not the bosses. Not many "Rocket
Scientist" come from this group. At $50 a pop it brings in a lot of money.
A group of guys (4-5) get together, each ship in $10, bring beer, order a couple
of pizzas and have a great time of "Male Bonding". It's a lot cheaper
than a date.
Dana White has taken many of the
older fighters who now are in the Twilight of their years and given them a
paycheck. As payback for all the years they gave to the sport and gone little of
nothing in return.. But the sport came to late for such great fighter as Maurice
Smith. Heavy weight kickboxing champion; 10 years undefeated! Recently at a
seminar in Canada Maurice told the students: "If I beat you. You got beat
by and Old Man" The two most powerful kicks I personally knew were Joe
Lewis and Maurice Smith. Maurice Smith and I had studios in Belleview, WA, that
were only two blocks apart.
There is no doubt that - MMA (UFC) is the fastest growing SPECTATOR sport in America. Notice it is popular as a SPECTATOR sport. The same was true for 100 years for boxing, The top fighters could make millions. But none of the boxing gyms did. Look a "Rocky" did it look like the owner of the gym was making a fortune?
One big problem the UFC has is they do not have enough really top fighter to put on Main Event fights every new UFC. But this is also true of Boxing can any of you tell me who the current Heavyweight boxing champion is?
In the future I will run a complete Blog on Maurice Smith. Maurice Smith was the first to show the world how to beat the Gracias.
In the future you will here be use and old Zen saying, and I will give you the story that goes with it. It generally indicated that there is more than meets the eye. Here is an Example:
Isn't it great that the UFC is making Millions and the owners are billionaires?
WE WILL SEE, SAID THE ZEN MASTER!
Below are two links to show you the real problems with the UFC. Its not what you would expect.
1/02/2010
A true story:
The most dedicated instructor I have ever know!
At one of our mid-west studios we had a student who just loved teaching. On top of that, he was a good Martial Artist! He would teach any day any time you wanted him to. He did not care if he was paid or not. But each year he had to take off two months, as he told us, to help with the family business. This would continue for 5+ years. Then one day the FBI quietly came into the studio and arrested him. It seem that during the two month he took off he would go out and rob banks. This gave him enough money to let him live for another year, and do what he loves most: Teach!
Bad Advice
Recently a student that had been associated with us became a big MMA fan. He went out and bought a MMA franchise, and the advice the Franchiser gave him: Don't buy liability insurance, just get the student to sign a Hold Harmless agreement.
I just saw a case were they went right through the Hold Harmless and the studio owner ended up with a $150,000 judgment against him, plus attorneys fees.
REALITY: Liability insurance will only run about $600 a year. Its the cost of doing business.
Let us assume you do not have Insurance, and one of your students is injured seriously, by you or one of your instructors, such as a blown out knee - which is very common in grappling. The injury is serious enough that he cannot work. The injured student gets and attorney and files a law suit for $250,000++. It happens all the time.You go out and get an attorney. The first thing your attorney will want is a retainer of $5,000++ and that's just to start. He knows if you lose the law suit you will not have the money to pay him, so he wants his money up front. Even if you are lucky enough to win the law suit the total legal bill can easily be $20,000. And you will probably lose the law suit if you think a hold harmless will protect you. The first thing the victim's attorney will prove is you or your instructor, were negligent. If you lose, you will end up paying both attorneys fee, plus the award for damages to the injured party. The bottom line: they will bankrupt you and they will take everything you own.
The same thing is true, if you think that by just putting every thing in a corporation you will be protect. Think again. Its called piercing the Corporate veil. Once again they will go after you personally for negligence. Remember a Corporation does not teach or injure anyone - you and your instructors do.
NO BRAINIER: If you have insurance - right or wrong the Insurance company turns it over to their attorneys. Once the injured person attorneys find out you have insurance it is now a fight between the two attorneys. Now your insurance company will make a determination if it is cheaper to go to trial or just pay the injured person! Makes your $600 investment in insurance look pretty good.Big problem for MMA studios - most insurance companies will not insure you. Why should they? Recently I got insurance to cover our "Gathering of Eagles" one stipulation - "NO CONTACT". By the way, grappling is considered contact!
To be covered in my next blog: My view of MMA!
1/1/2010
Starting with the new year I will be archiving -"The Tracy Blog" week by week. All you have to do is click on the weekly blog to get previous material.
If you are interested in history I recommend you get a 3 ring binder and print out any section you want to keep for your own personal library.
I will be giving you links to other web pages that I feel contain important information. Many of these pages do not stay up for long. If you simply bookmark them and try to find them latter you will find they no longer exist
The first link I want to give you is http://judoinfo.com/karateranks.htm
How the Masters Got Their Ranks: Origins of the Karate Rank System This is one of the best researched articles relating to ranking in the Martial Arts. The article in quite lengthy and technical. But, you will see the subject of rank has always been a mess, not just in Kenpo.
I would like to give credit to the Author - but he is unknown - therefore I would like to thank the Judo Group that put up the information.
I will be posting more to this page letter today.
1/2/2010
Joke time - with a message
A man ends up at the pearly gates waiting for St. Peter to let him in. St Peter asked him what had happened to bring his life to an early end? The man replied: I walked into this Gay bar and told them I could kick any queers ass in the bar! How long ago was that asked St. Peter? The man looked down at his watch and replied: about 3 minutes ago!
It was obvious the next person in line to talk to St Peter had an attitude. He was wearing a MMA "T" shirt, letting the world know what a "Bad Ass" he was. Why are you here St. Peter asked. The man told him I was going to a "Sports Bar" to watch a MMA fight. By mistake I ended up in a "Red Neck/Biker Bar", I did not saw a thing. The next thing I knew I was Up here> St. Peter told him: go take a number, we get a lot of guys like you these days!
Huston we have a problem:
American Kenpo is crashing and burning!
We are now told by the "American Kenpo Masters" that the Self Defense techniques and the way they are done in the Katas are different.
That leaves us with three possibilities.
1. The Self Defense Techniques are
right and the katas are wrong - Or
2. The Katas are right and the Self
Defense Techniques are wrong - Or
3. Both the self defense techniques
and katas are wrong.
One of the leading American Kenpo Masters does not teach extensions because he claims they were not originally part of American Kenpo
Another master when he goes out on seminars - claims the written manuals are wrong and only he knows the true way the techniques should be done. Here is the sad thing: he may be right - he helped write the written manuals for American Kenpo.
We are now told that Ed Parkers had "Secrets Manual" that only contained 16 techniques. That means the same material that made then a 3 degree black belt - now makes them a 5th degree.
Not to be one upped there are also American Kenpo schools out there teaching only 12 techniques.
And one studio out of Florida is selling a course with only 8 technique per belt.
Now you see why, when Ed Parker died, he chose "NO ONE" to take over and lead "American Kenpo" .
Now there is a new group trying to tell us there is a difference between "American Kenpo" and "Ed Parkers " Kenpo! And they are teaching Ed Parkers Kenpo.
In the future I will be posting a link from one of "Mrs. Parker" newsletter showing the ranks of all the IKKA'S black belts. It amazing how many claiming rank are not even listed or do not have the rank they claimed.
Fact: Ed Parker gave out
only one 9th degree black belt and that was a Provisional Black belt to Nick
Cero that expired after one year.
At his death the high's rank Ed Parker awarded was 7th degree Black belt and
there were very few of those.
Notice I state Ed Parkers gave out Black Belt - But not Dan Rankings. The IKKA construction stipulates the ranks for instructor should be: Shodan, Nidan, Sandan, Yodan, Godan, Etc.
Why is it that Ed Parker awarded some
Dan ranking and others only Black Belts?