When cornered by the truth, frauds sometimes give the most amusing excuses. One of the best is when they try to say that the claims you prove cannot be true on their web sites weren’t put up there by themselves, but by someone else. Yes, the sites they are using to promote themselves and have proven to contain lies aren’t their fault, or so they claim. It is the fake MA equivalent of “The dog at my homework.”
Bret Gordon and Stephen Hatfield have been going at it with a man calling himself Lordus Sapiens. And it is a textbook case of frauds trying to explain away things. All the tactics and dodges we have seen frauds use are on display as they try to avoid being exposed for the frauds they are. The link is at the bottom of the page, and while the article exposing them is great and full of detail, the comment section is where the comedy begins.
And yes, as Lordus exposed that things they were claiming on their sites were lies, they tried to pass the blame onto an unnamed web designer. These lies were, and are, on multiple sites these guys ran. And yet, supposably over the years neither Hatfield nor Gordon noticed the ‘mistakes’ as they call them, nor were able to get the web designer to correct them. Yes, they honestly think people will believe that story.
This whole thing started when someone called them out with their claim to represent the Kodokan. The Kodokan was founded by Jigoro Kano, father of Judo. It is the Mecca for those that study judo. As it turns out, there is a membership card that allows you to train at the main dojo in Japan if you ever get there that anyone can buy for 80 dollars. That is all they had. They were not ranked in Kodokan and not allowed to say they were a branch of it. It was a lie that they had to retract and make excuses over. Since then, they have been making excuse after excuse as Lordus rips them a new one for the claims they make.
Claiming that their websites weren’t under their control isn’t the only tactic they have tried to make, but it is perhaps the most hysterical.
Here is a quote from Bret Gordon trying to explain away the holes Lordus found in their stories.
“As I stated in our rather lengthy email correspondence, Hatfield sensei was not responsible for that “resume” or even those websites. That is why they have since been removed, as he did not even have access to make modifications to them to correct the false information you cling to in this article.”
Again, the link to the article by Lordus is at the bottom, and in the comment section you can see them try all the dodges frauds use in martial arts.
But here is something I want to point out. Just one thing to make it simple. Here is something that appears on multiple sites controlled by them. I quoted Gordon saying that the old sites weren’t under their control, but everything up now should be. Or are they going to try to claim that they got more than one evil web designer by coincidence?
“American Yoshinkan Aiki Jujutsu is a neo-classical martial arts system derived from Daito Ryu and Yoshinkan Aikido. Founded in 1957 by Yutashi Hasaka, our system was designed to preserve the combative integrity of Japanese warrior arts while innovating the training methods to be applicable for modern self defense and survival.”
As I said, that claim in various forms appears on multiple sites controlled by Gordan and Hatfield.
Here is the kicker, the founder, Yutashi Hasaka is made up. He never existed.
How do I know? Because Yutashi Hasaka isn’t a Japanese name. Not only have I never heard of Yutashi nor Hasaka being used as a Japanese name, but there is a classic reference on Japanese names for those learning the language. It is called, appropriately enough, “Japanese Names.” It is by P.G. O’Neil and is very useful for those studying the language because the rules of reading Japanese characters (kanji) go out the window a lot of times when dealing with names.
Neither “Yutashi” nor “Hasaka” appear in it. It is a fake name made up by Hatfield. I would consider that they might be a name that O’Neil missed in his classic work. But two names like this? Your odds of winning the powerball are better.
Here is a blog by Bret Gordon. Note that is is a blog and thus something he himself had to have written by the definition of “blog.”
http://www.join-usama.com/blog/what-is-american-yoshinkan-aiki-jujutsu
Note these gems,
“American Yoshinkan Aiki Jujutsu was founded by Yutashi Hasaka.”
(Skip)
“In 1957, Yutashi sensei began modifying techniques and incorporating his own philosophies, laying the foundation for what would become American Yoshinkan. An in-depth striking repertoire was added from his Goju-Ryu Karatedo experience, as well as certain grounding principles more common of Okinawan Karatedo than Japanese Jujutsu. In the 1960s, Yutashi sensei first visited the United States and over the next thirty years would routinely travel back and forth before making a permanent home in California in the 1990s. It was then that Steven Hatfield began studying under Yutashi sensei who was a close friend of his father. Hatfield sensei remained a dedicated student until Yutashi sensei's death in 2007, when Hatfield sensei was named Soke*.”
So there you go, not something you can blame on a web designer. Yutashi Hasaka is mentioned and the claim is that he moved to America in the 90s and died here. There should be records of a lot of things. Hell, there should be mentions of his name. And yet if you do a search of his name, all the hits come back to sites run by Hatfield and Gordon.
Obviously, it is a lie created by Hatfield and continued by Gordon. Instead of admitting that American Yoshinkan was created after watching a lot of Youtube videos, they wanted to add a veneer of legitimacy by claiming it was created by a Japanese master.
Why would competent people have to lie like that? Well, the truth is competent people don’t lie about things like this. Those that have actual ability can point to that ability instead of making up a fancy story. People like Hatfield and Gordon have to rely on stories to impress the rubes.
As I said, the dog ate my homework excuse isn’t the only one they are using. Among the tactics they are using to try to take the sting out of being exposed are these,
-They are trying to discount everything Lordus says because he won’t give his real name. They aren’t really touching the provable facts he is pointing out, instead saying people should ignore it because they don’t know his real identity. Mind you, I have exposed many frauds and some people that rape kids in martial arts. As a result, I have had threats to my children and even had a man named David Richardson try to get a heavily armed lunatic riled up enough at me to come out and kill my family. With that sort of thing being common among the unhinged folks that we expose, reasonable people will understand why folks like Lordus are more and more protecting themselves by not giving a name. And again, the facts are the facts no matter who says them and Lordus proves all that he says.
-They claim they have proof that they will only show if people travel to them. Yeah, right. A single person walking into that situation alone with unstable folks makes licking door nobs in Wuhan, China look safe by comparison. Of course, when Lordus would not drop everything and travel to them, which would also reveal his identity to his many crazed enemies like Bohdi Sanders, they try to belittle his work and claim he is a coward. This must appeal to their egos, just like a cat up a tree can tell itself the dog is too scared to climb up after it.
-
-“We could show you proof, if you had shown the right attitude.” That is fairly common. I have had people tell me that many times. The fun thing about online forums is that then someone else who has never chimed in can then respond with the most polite request possible. As you can imagine, they are refused as well.
You can probably tell that I have dealt with a lot of incompetent martial artists like Gordon and Hatfield over the years that have to make up lies to impress others. And the two of them are using the classic playbook.
Let me cut to the chase. As I have shown, they are spreading lies about the creation of American Yoshinkan. If they want to prove me wrong, they have to prove that there actually was a guy named Yutashi Hasaka and that he did what they claim he did. There should be records they can access. The two are the type that proudly put up photos of themselves with any martial art celebrity even if they were only in the same room for five minutes. The lack of any photos of Hasaka is telling in this light. You don’t get made a successor of a Japanese art without being close to the teacher and knowing a lot about them. I am sure they will tell a story about how Hasaka had no family they know of, didn’t have a job where anyone knew he existed, etc. As you can tell, this isn’t my first rodeo.
Now I get to see what excuses they use to ignore the call to prove that Yutashi Hasaka even existed. So far in the comment section of the piece by Lordus, only Gordon is responding. I actually expect them to try something like saying that Gordon made a mistake about the name of Yutashi Hasaka, even though that name has been used on web sites for about a decade from the look of things. I would not put it past them to try to say that at no point during the years that name has been used on their web sites that Hatfield bothered to tell Gordon that he was getting the name of his teacher wrong.
But I am certain they are far more likely to try to attack me than make any effort to prove that Yutashi Hasaka ever existed. I know they aren’t going to prove me wrong on this.
Here is the article by Lordus with the comment section.
https://martialartsfraudsandfakes.wordpress.com/2020/04/06/may-the-circle-jerk-be-unbroken-part-1/