Pedophiles infest martial arts. It is a nasty little secret that few that make their living off of teaching the art want known. It is time for us in the community to start to talk about it.
This week’s rant is inspired by a pedophile that came across my radar last night. His name is David Allison and he is on Facebook still this morning. Facebook says it doesn’t allow registered sex offenders to join, but he did.
Here is his record. It clearly states that he is on the list for child molestation.
http://www.sexoffendersbystate.com/indiana/offenderdetails.php?OfndrID=647335&AgencyID=54829
And here is his Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/DavidLeoAllison
All of this is disturbing to me because the address he lists for his home is also the place another site devoted to martial arts says is where he teaches it.
Before I go on, I want to acknowledge that there are cases where people who were 18 dated a 17 year old and got on the list for that. Then there are false accusations, mistakes and such like that. None of that seems to be the case with Allison. He was born in 1964 and was convicted in 2007. When you are in your 40s, you know to be careful with someone that looks to be over less than half your age. And when someone named Patrick Ferrari revealed his status in a Facebook group, Allison threatened his life. Nothing indicates anything other than a slimy, predatory pedophile.
This case strikes close to home for me. You see, Allison claims to teach “Allison Taijutsu” and ninjutsu. I study Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, which has the art of Togakure-ryu ninjutsu within it. Allison was a member of a group devoted to ninjutsu history and two groups devoted to Bujinkan. He was tossed from all of them as soon as we found out.
The nearest Bujinkan group to him seems to know nothing about him, at least under that name. At this point I suspect that he is a video home learning student. Many people that want to start their own arts do that. They take a video course, which essentially sells rank, and then list the black belt they got from it as one of their qualifications for making their own art. If someone wanted to get a rank like that, without interacting too closely with others that might do background checks on them, then video courses are the way to go. Sadly, I am aware of at least one case where someone with a felony conviction was allowed to join a Bujinkan affiliated video training course despite the ban set down by the organization against people with criminal records joining. Those that do video courses usually teach for a living and are not eager to turn away chances to add to their cash flow.
This is not the first case of a pedophile joining the Bujinkan through a video learning course. I have detailed how Ralph Hall joined a service like this run through Richard VanDonk and his International Bujinkan Association. With the card he got from VanDonk, Hall created a fanciful story of being both a secret tenth dan trained in Japan and an elite soldier who killed enemy with his bare hands in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hall spent time in jail for sleeping with a 13 year old student attracted to him by his story. Last I heard, he is in Reno and spreading the same stories.
We are trying to deal with Allison. I urge people to look on his profile and see if there are any mutual friends you have with him. If so, they need to be notified. If they are fine with being friends with a convicted child molester active on Facebook, you might want to drop them. I have dropped someone that acknowledged that he was on the sex offender list, but didn’t drop him as a friend. That person makes his living off of teaching seminars and selling books, so I guess he can live with someone being a child molester as long as there is a chance he can make money off of book sales later.
David Allison is far from being the only pervert in martial arts that chase after young children. I have just mentioned Ralph Hall and I have done blogs on Ron Collins, the fake ninja master and member of the International Black Dragon Fighting Society (which knows of his criminal records). There are many, many more cases of martial arts teachers sleeping with students, raping them and other sundry tales.
Why are there so many? My theory is that the reason is twofold.
For one, hunters go to where there is prey. If you want to seduce kids, then places that have classes for kids are a natural choice to work. Allison seems to teach out of his apartment if he has any actual students. That is perfect for a pedophile.
Unlike typical classes geared for kids like violin and ballet, martial arts really don’t require much ability to set oneself up as a teacher. You can easily get something that a cursory search seems to be something that legitimizes you like Ralph Hall did with the video course. There are groups on Facebook like the one that calls itself the Kenpo Karate Family International that will give out certificates acknowledging you as a master, and has given out certificates to incompetent martial artists and convicted criminals in the past. Stuff like this will probably satisfy most mothers as they look for a place that is essentially day care for the kids.
The second reason is that martial arts are seen as macho. And many of the types that want to sleep with little girls are trying to fill a hole in their character.
There are actually two different types of pedophiles. One is wired mentally towards kids, very young kids. If Jessica Alba walked in wearing a thong they would not be interested. Anything older than about 8 does not interest them. Thankfully, they are rare.
The second type was the version the teachers I worked with in schools in Japan were always on the look out for. They are the types that go for early teenage girls because they are seen as easy prey. These types would go for Alba, but could not handle her. They are failures as men. Young girls are seen as being less intelligent, more easily manipulated, etc. They are the fall back position for men who can’t bring enough to the table to attract a real woman.
As part of this character, many of these types try very hard to be what they are not. People who are stupid try to appear smart, those who are socially awkward are the most likely to act like Don Juan, etc. So those who aren’t man enough for grown women try to portray themselves to the world as the most macho types possible. Quite often they not only act the part of a marital arts master, but they make reference to military accomplishments that are lies as well. If they ever served in the military, it usually was a failure due to their inability to hack it, which only causes them to double their efforts to portray themselves as an elite.
Examples, Ralph Hall failed army basic training, made up a story about being an elite soldier that killed the enemy with his bare hands and was convicted for having sex with a 13 year old girl. Ron Collins failed marine corps basic training, tried to present himself as a member of their elite Force Recon, sent to jail for trying to sleep with a 13 year old girl. David Allison makes plenty of references on his social media profiles as being ex-military as a scout, but seems to have served only 2 years, 5 months, which I don’t think is a full term of enlistment.
There are several lessons to be taken from this. For one, parents should do a lot better checking of the teachers they entrust their kids with. Unless the person is willing to put students in touch with their teacher, or those that trained with them as students, care should be taken. If David Allison actually ever had martial arts training under a real teacher, rather than a video course, then he would never let potential students contact them for fear of his old teachers knowing about his status and warning the victims away.
Another lesson is to be wary of those that take too much effort to portray themselves as being really macho. People try to present themselves as something they are not, so too much posturing as a commando indicates they aren’t much of a man. I have served in the military, but it is not a major part of my instructor profile as a martial arts teacher. It really has nothing to do with dealing with a sucker punch. All my friends who are ex-military and teach martial arts are the same. If you ask we will tell you our experience as dumb kids in uniform, but we don’t put photos of us with our military uniforms on all over our site.
There are predators out there in the martial arts. It is time we acknowledged that and started spreading the word. Yes, there will probably be a backlash and many will avoid any sort of martial arts classes for their kids rather than take the risk. Those that teach for a living seem unwilling to acknowledge the problem for this very reason. But the rest of us that just teach for love of the art should have no problem in blowing the lid off of the situation.
Please help spread the word.