The setting is the summer of 2004 and the dojo classes were barely a year into existence in the basement of the YMCA two levels below ground. In the fall of 2003, after the newspaper article previously mentioned, a father and son started training with Sensei Green. The son who started at age nine was around age nine and a half when this challenge was initiated by a commercialized martial arts school black belt that was 11. She, yes she was very confident that she could defeat our student, Cameron, in a sparring match.
When the father and son started training, they quickly advanced to their yellow belt. When they earned their yellow, they went on and earned their next belt which was orange four months later. The father and son duo had a good amount of semi-private lessons while training with Green. The father trained with the son and they would spar together and regularly. The father, who is a former Marine of 15 years would often work hard to build his son's confidence up and did a great job at keeping him humble but, also very disciplined in his martial arts studies.
Green was training Cameron in the summer camp along with the other 120 children in martial arts at the YMCA camp. Cameron was a dedicated student who practiced diligently and the best he could. This type of martial arts character is harder to find than you might imagine nowadays. The challenge by the girl was unexpected at the time because Green didn't think anything of it and had not idea any of the children had any martial arts training.
What followed was the "challenge" transaction with Green. The eleven year old girl comes up to Green after a class and asks "Can I spar Cameron?" She was targeting the best child student we had at the time thinking that she could take him on, no problem. Green quickly replied "Don't ask me, ask Cameron!" The girl then turned to Cameron who was standing near by and she said "Cameron, do you want to spar?" Cameron quipped "Sure" while shrugging his shoulders as it didn't seem to bother Cameron at all. Green told both of them that they would spar tomorrow as class was already over. Green turned to the girl and explained the rules to the girl, who was a Tae Kwon Do practitioner for 3 years versus our student of nine months of Karate. She quickly disregarded what Green was telling her as not all that important. Green told them both that they would both spar tomorrow and to bring their sparring gear.
As the next day approached, Green eagerly awaited for what was going to transpire and felt good that Cameron would be able to do well in this situation due to all the training Green had poured into him and his dad. Both students arrived for the regularly scheduled class of karate training. At nearly the end of the class, Green had both students gear up (independently) while finishing out the regular training session with the rest of the kids. Green went ahead and explain the differences within the rules between Karate and Tae Kwon Do kumite/sparring.
The girl was dismissive of Green's explanation of the rules and asked "Can we just get started?" Green then quickly replied "Sure." Green made sure both competitors had their mouthpieces and other necessary protective gear for maximum safety. Twenty five campers of the "Y" were on the outside perimeter of the mat as a traditional karate kumite match would occur. Green lined up the students in their respective places and said "Rei" Both students bowed in their own style of martial art. Then Green, said with a commanding voice "Hijime" (Go or Start) then both students took one step back and then engaged into the kumite match.
The girl tried 35 consecutive attempts to make contact with Cameron in any legal target areas. She punched and kicked and was unsuccessful on landing any move on Cameron. Cameron was blocking every technique that was being thrown at him. This transpired over 30 seconds or so.
Green stopped the match due to Cameron's lack of offensive retaliation and counter measures. Green yelled "Yame" (Stop) and sliced the air downward with his right hand as a karate referee would do while in a front stance (semi deep stance with the front knee bent and back leg locked out.) He turned to Cameron and commanded "Cameron, how come you are not punching and kicking back?" Cameron replied "Sensei, because she is a girl." Green then ordered "Cameron, would you just spar her!" Cameron then acknowledged by saying "Oss." (Oss mean's yes sir.)
Green had the students get back to their starting line and then yelled "Hijime!" Both students did their adjustments of each others distance and then Cameron saw an opening. Cameron went towards her and unleashed upon her many extremely quick punching and kicking combinations in rapid fire that he return all of her amount of actions in a fraction of the time it took her to perform them. In the matter of only 6-8 seconds, Cameron had overwhelmed her to the point to where she said "Stop, stop, stop" 3 times in about 2 seconds. She had put her arms up in a non-martial arts way as if she had no training at all. Her reaction was her turning her head and being completely defenseless in defending herself. Green recognized this lack of defend compounded by her verbal cues and Green belted out "Yame!"
The room was quiet for a moment until one child said "Tae Kwon Do sucks" Green quickly asserted "Do not say that!" However, the evidence was now shown, that with the variables at hand, the challenger felt foolish for even thinking of asserting such a challenge in a traditional karate school. She was extremely embarrassed and rightfully so. One would wonder where this now, 25 year old woman is now in her life. Did her life take a much more positive turn from this learning experience or did she just sum this up as Cameron getting lucky that he caught her not on her best day. Hopefully the first assumption is what occurred.
This story, which is a non-fictional story, has been told several times in the Green's Karate dojo as a way to have students understand several circumstances and situations to learn from.
One, do not ever go to a martial arts school and challenge anyone to spar. You not only make yourself look bad but also your martial arts school. Two, do not under estimate anyone, ever, in what they are capable of doing. Three, show good manners even when someone is foolish in their endeavors. Four, always think that there is someone better. This keeps you humble and this will help you in the long run in life. Five, always show respect one another and never think you are better than anyone else.
This is not the last time students of Green's Karate students have been challenged. The next challenge happened only one year later between another black belt who was a 3rd degree black belt versus a Green belt. (Green belt is half way to black belt.) This particular story will be told but will have to be told at another time. In case you are wondering, yes, this black belt was from the same martial arts school in this story and no they were not from a school named Cobra Kai, but close enough. The latest challenge was less than one year ago and yes, from the same martial arts school, again. However, the challenger, who is also a 3rd degree black belt didn't spar our best students, and the circumstances mentioned very briefly above didn't go down the same way as the story that we will tell. In fact, he is to come back to face our best students one day.
The overall outcomes in our 20 year history, we have never lost a challenge and don't ever intend to. Lastly, when a challenger does come again, Sensei Green prefers to tell them "We have been waiting for you!" This always invokes an interesting response.
Cameron eventually grew up and became a Marine, just like his father. Thank you Cameron for your dedication in karate. You made us proud! You were incredible then as well as now! Thank You for your service! There are several more stories about Cameron's karate adventures and we will share those at a later date.
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