6 Worst Fake Martial Arts Masters of All Time

 

Fake martial arts masters can range from hilarious, as they are demonstrating their out-of-this-world imaginary martial arts techniques, to scary, as their actions may lead to dangerous real-life consequences. In this article, you'll learn about the 6 worst fake martial arts masters of all time, starting from the most hilarious ones, and gradually progressing to the scary ones. 

6. Ashida Kim: The Hilarious Ninja Master

 I can't but laugh every time I see Ashida Kim's ninja technique demonstrations.

A self-proclaimed ninjutsu master, on his website, Ashida Kim lists possessing skills that none of his critics can duplicate, such as the Kata Dante dance of the deadly hands, ninja levitation flying without wings, and iron fist of the ninja hand into the steel trap. Not only did Ashida Kim release instructional DVDs, he also wrote countless ninja training books in multiple languages, and even expanded into writing fictional novels featuring himself as the main protagonist, such as his classic, The Amorous Adventures of Ashida Kim, where as a secret ninja spy, he is romantically involved with multiple women, and where Mr. Kim must prove ritual whorehouse combat. On top of it all, Ashida Kim also has a statement on his website that he is accepting challenge fights as a professional fighter for a fee of $10,000, and lists a number of detailed conditions you have to meet if you want to fight him.

With all of these amazing achievements, Ashida Kim easily makes the top place as the unintentionally most hilarious fake martial arts master of all time.

5. George Tillman: The No-Touch Knockout Master

George Tillman's story begins as a confusing one. As early in his martial arts career, he associated himself with known and respected martial arts figures such as Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali, but in later days he's shown that hanging out with great martial artists doesn't necessarily make you one.

Not only does Tillman claim to teach pressure points, which never been proven to work, his most hilarious downfall came during a National Geographic documentary, where Tillman claimed to teach no-touch knockouts, a martial art technique that affects another person via distance without physical contact. As the National Geographic team documented his no-touch class, many of his students seemed to be able to replicate this technique amongst themselves. But as soon as a scientist stepped in to experience the no-touch effects first hand, which were by the way not done by George Tillman himself, likely to avoid potential failure and complete humiliation in the case of failing, the technique did not work.

But the funniest part came not during, but after the demonstration, when George tried to explain why the technique didn't work. The reason though George does not make the top of this list in hilarity, is because in 1997, he was put in the Hall of Fame of the Black Belt Magazine, along such names as Bruce Lee and Hoist Gracie, while also being named Black Belt Magazine's Martial Arts Instructor of the Year, showing that even the craziest martial artists can fool others and bringing us one step closer to scary on our list. 

4. Count Dante: From Marketing Genius to Dojo Wars Tragedy

No faked martial arts master's list would be complete without John Timothy Keehan, who later went by Count Juan Rafael Dante, or simply as Count Dante.

While seemingly a capable karateka at first, Count Dante even hosted many tournaments during the 1960s, where he paired practitioners of different styles against each other. Keehan even grew disillusioned with conventional karate instructions focused on ceremony, tradition and protocol over what he felt to be effectiveness, and began developing his own style that he would promote as street effective, something that seems a respectable path in martial arts. But the hilarity begins when Count Dante creates his own style, which he referred to by multiple names, such as the Dante System, Dance of Death or sometimes the Kata Dante, whereby learning all of these steps of Keehan's Dance of Death, you would thereby become an effective fighting master.

He later began heavily promoting himself via comic book ads as the deadliest man alive, a brilliant marketing move at the time if you ask me, and claiming that he participated in secret death matches in Thailand and China, winning by killing opponents in front of crowds numbering in the thousands. He also worked as a hairdresser, by the way. On top of it all, Keehan offered an opportunity to mail order his instructional booklet World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets, a clearly very secret booklet available to everyone.

But Count Dante's story turns to a scary one during the so-called Dojo Wars, which happened in April of 1970, as Dante and some of his students performed a Dojo Storm, an attack on a rival dojo that led to a brief battle which resulted in very real consequences, the death of Dante's friend and fellow sensei, reminding us that being a fake martial arts master can sometimes go too far. 

3. Jeff: Abuse of Power and Sexual Misconduct

A former DEA agent, now best known for his Log vs Sword video, who turns out to have a fascinating biography, starting with the fact that he was removed from the DEA for breaking a number of DEA rules, such as operating vehicles he was not allowed to use, or taking firearms off-site illegally to use them to teach firearm safety.

Jeff happens to also be a 15th degree bujinkan black belt, a ninjutsu-based martial art created by Masaaki Hatsumi, a Japanese gentleman who in his later years rocked purple hair, and where one of the final tests for a black belt exam is to kneel with your eyes closed, expecting a wooden sword strike from behind you, and moving out of the way as soon as you intuitively feel the sword coming. A test that doesn't always end well. Yet where Jeff's story turns into a scary one, is in how he abused his power and influence as a martial arts instructor.

For example, he once convinced one of his students to let him marry their wife. Then in other two cases, he sexually abused two women, with him told that in order to fix their sexual relationships with their husbands, they had to go through a sexual healing therapy with him, during which he had sex with them. Both cases were later classified as rape.

Some crazy examples that remind us that the given authority to martial arts instructors can be abused in various and dark ways. 

2. Joshua Fabia: Dangerous Training Methods and Intimidation

The case of Joshua Fabia is rarely a funny one, and often leans to being a scary one instead, as an example how far crazy people can go. Joshua Fabia initially became known as the coach of the famous UFC fighter Diego Sanchez, but things turned sour when a training video was released, where Fabia had Sanchez hanging from a bar, and straight up hit him in the head, face and even kicked him.

A training method that has zero real life application and is simply dangerous. But that was not the first instance of Fabia's crazy behavior. In an earlier case he was reported to pull out a real knife during a training exercise and chasing his students around a ring with it.

An improvised, but dangerous and crazy training exercise. He was also captured dozens of times speaking over his fighter during his interviews, and in one case even approaching the hosts of the show and physically intimidating them to prove his point. On top of having dangerous and hardly sensible training methods, the worst part about Joshua Fabia is that for a long time he was featured in many interviews and promotions of Diego Sanchez, given opportunities to spread his crazy messages, showing us once more that crazy martial artists can influence all sorts of people, reach various levels of influence and should be regarded and listened to with caution.

1. James Hydrick: Psychic Fraud and Child Molestation

 Initially James Heydrich's case seems like a cautionary tale in believing the supernatural without taking a closer look. For a period in time he was considered to be the world's greatest psychic, being featured in big time TV shows, during which he was demonstrating feats such as turning the pages of books without touching them and making pencils spin around on desks, leading to many believers and a national cult following. He was later exposed by skeptic James Randi, when they both appeared on television, where Heydrich was supposed to prove his powers.

Randi placed foam peanuts on the table around the phone book, to show Heydrich was actually turning the pages by simply blowing on them. As Heydrich attempted to turn the pages, his powers suddenly failed him. He claimed that the stage lights were causing the foam pieces to generate a static electric charge, which prevented him from using his powers.

But in reality, he was just proven to be a fraud. Yet the scary part of Heydrich's story comes from his martial arts career. Using his fame he created a martial arts school, which at a certain period of time had a whopping 2000 students.

During these classes, Heydrich claimed he could pass on the gift of psychokinesis to children through special training techniques, which in 1989 was shown to be a front for his coercing children into performing sexual favors for him. Eventually Heydrich was sentenced to 17 years from molesting 5 boys, yet again showing the scary side of how fake martial arts masters can abuse their power in the most horrible ways.