MA charlatans - a dime a dozen!!

Nick,

I’ve long believed that there are more charlatans in MA than in any other area of life, including politics. Some of these fakes/frauds are far
more ‘transparent’ and flushed out quicker than others. Some never are.

It’s unfortunate that many students don’t do their homework before committing to an instructor. Though I must say, people are becoming more and more discerning when it comes to value-for-money (in all things).

The MA industry seems to have just exposed another sizable fish in the past few days – see the ‘Self Defence & Practical Martial Arts’ thread - if you haven’t already.

What are your thoughts in general Nick, and perhaps specific to this most recent 'exposure'??

Cheers.

What the...

Mate, apologies are due...your post slipped through the cracks somehow.

It's true...there are a slew of fakers in the MA world. They seem to pop up anywhere you can get away with bullshitting people who don't know any better.

I don't know that we have a monopoly on them though mate. I think the military probably wins that one hands down. As Lofty Weismann told me once, the balcony at the Iranian embassy must be the biggest balcony in the world because every fooker was on it.

We have a site here that exposes fake navy SEALs and there are thousands of names on that site...how many SAS men I met in England weren't really in it? A bunch I suspect and I've yet to meet anyone who served in Vietnam who wasn't a LURP, assassin, deep penetration agent, phoenix program, green beret or SEAL. I mean someone must have worked in the post office, driven a truck, cooked dinner and filed reports...I just haven't met one yet.

One of the benefits of the internet is that a lot of these guys get exposed for what they are a lot quicker than they would have in the old days.

Nick

Ill-informed claims can be interesting sometimes.

One time when I was in the gym the radio was on and this (English) guy was whining on about how he wasn't good with girls and didn't understand why they didn't like him. He added 'I was a Navy SEAL, I've got great pecs'.

So there's the reason - you're a liar and not very bright to boot, sonny.


Sometimes charlatans can be entertaining. An instructor from round here met a guy a while back claiming to be his top student, recently qualified to open a class. That was a fascinating conversation.

My mate (captain of the University fencing team at the time) interviewed someone for a university programme. She cited her interests as including fencing and claimed to be... yes... captain of the University team.

"That's interesting, I've never interviewed myself before"
"Huh?"
"Well, you see, I'm the fencing captain. So what else are you lying about?"

It's great busting those wankers...

Had one guy at the club I was running security at in Oz trying to tell me he was a Bob Jane (not Jones) black belt. Bob Jane owns a national tyre repair center. I asked him if it was a black belted radial but he didn't get it. (being less tolerant in those days I did snot him for his porkies )

In the UK Churchill's (a security company I worked for) called me in on the panel to interview a guy claiming experience with the Legion. He had actually been in, as a desk clerk in the pay office, and had lost hearing in one ear due to a waterskiing accident. Unfortunately he was claiming secret squirrel experience in Beirut and the loss of hearing due to a grenade going off that he jumped on to save his colleagues during a daring hostage rescue mission of a kidnapped General.

Should have seen his face drop when they introduced me after his initial story time. Priceless.

Nick

PS: You'll have to get Bryson to tell you about "Caine" in Townsville. That boy was in the Aussie Army but damn, could he tell some stories about the Aussie SAS and his time with them and assassination jobs etc. Amazing. He worked as a bouncer for some local jack the lad who claims he could beat anyone in town. When I arrived a match was arranged (unbeknownst to me it was set up by his boss and the owner of the tavern I was running security for...found out months later) and bets were made...When asked why he was handily thrashed apparently he was dealing with some jungle bug from another covert mission.

Weren't you threatened with yourself once, Nick? Lol!!

Sort of...my brother was bashing some guys down at a pub called The National and one of them, a half caste guy I knew on the fringes of my group of mates, said to my brother "you wait right here, I'm going to get someone to sort you out" and ran up the road to the strip club to get moi.

My brother followed him up to see who he was going to get...it was pretty funny.

Nick