It is somewhat amazing that there seems to be more Japanese martial arts teachers in America living in secret than in the land of the rising sun. I have lost count of the number of people claiming that some mysterious Japanese master lived next to them as a kid, teaching them all they know. And yet they must have been master ninjas, since they were able to keep off any public record or be seen by anyone else.
Obviously, their stories are suspect, especially if you know what I know. It is a lesson that if a story sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So some Japanese teacher just happened to live next to the guy trying to convince you to take his classes? And he actually made him a soke (successor) to his system? Really? Don’t you think that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof?
When looking for a martial arts teacher, those that have the simplest stories are usually the best bet. And if someone makes a claim about what happened to them, but refuses to back it up, treat them like the fraud they are and walk away. And I mean it when I say ‘happened to them’ and not anything a century or so ago. If they say that they served in the green berets, they should be able to show you their DD-214. If they claim something on their web site but refuse on the grounds of privacy to actually prove it, you know you are dealing with a fraud.
With my experience in Japan and with the language, I can tell problems with many stories that fakes use. That isn’t possible for most people. So keep things simple, and if there is any doubt, just go to the next place.
The latest folks to come across my radar with their outlandish stories is a pair called Steven Hatfield and Brett Gordon. Their story is that Hatfield had a master from Japan teach him the depths of a Japanese art and made him the soke of it, which Hatfield later passed to Gordon. This all went on in America, since neither of them seem to have ever made it to Japan. Of course, they refuse to show any proof this guy even existed, and no one can find any record of him, even though he supposably died not too ago in America.
I am waiting for someone to claim Bigfoot was their teacher in martial arts. Certainly, while no one can prove Bigfoot exists, no one of course can prove with certainty that he doesn’t exist. And that is what people like Gordon and Hatfield try to say, that they don’t have to prove that their mysterious teacher existed, but that others have to show how he did not exist. The advantage to claiming Bigfoot is that at least there are plenty of other people that at least claim to have seen him.
Now, not only does the story of Hatfield and Gordon set off red flags galore, but they have been caught doing very questionable things and making claims that have been proven to be false. When it was shown that things they put up on various web sites over the years were untrue, their excuse was that they really were not in control of what was up on them and blamed a web master, whom they never named. There are links at the bottom of the page, the first one being the first part of what turned out to be a four part series going through the claims of the two and shooting them down. And oh boy, there is a lot they got caught fibbing about.
And then there is the problem with their skill levels. Neither of the two are even at my level of knowledge of martial arts, let alone that of the actual soke I was privileged to run across in Japan.
One thing I can do that most can’t is understand Japanese. While others were tearing apart their stories regarding things like their judo qualifications, I noticed the name of the mysterious teacher they claim moved to America and taught Hatfield in secret. His name was supposably Yutashi Hasaka (遊武 羽坂). It is a name that native Japanese have said sounds weird and not Japanese at all. it is also spelled wrong for the pronunciation they try to give. I wrote a blog about it, which caused them to jump up and down with rage. They called my apartment and otherwise tried to intimidate me, but of course would not show proof that the guy existed.
So it amused me to see an attempt at damage control by Gordon this week. He plagiarized an article on names to try to explain away the problems. It is the second link at the bottom. The original article he cut and pasted from without attribution is the last link at the bottom.
The gist of what was written is that the Japanese can play with their kanji (characters) to give another meaning to a name. As an example, a character in a book may be called, 男. That means ‘man’ and normally would be pronounced “otoko.” But, using small phonetic script next to the kanji, the reader can be aware that it is actually pronounced ‘Adam’ in this case. Japanese can play with words in this way. It is like how Jules Verne had one of his characters call himself Nemo, which means ‘no man’ in Latin, to make a point.
The article mentions how the famous Pichachu is spelled in a way that gives nuance to its ability to burst out in light, and details other fictional characters like Naushika from Studio Ghibli.
So at the bottom of the plagiarized work on his site, Brett Gordon added this,
“And of course, my favorite example of a kira kira name is Yutashi 遊武 (sometimes written 豊). The traditional pronunciation of this name would be Yutaka, a very common Japanese male name. But even in the name itself, the kanji 遊 means "to play" as if it's a play on words. Some things are hidden in plain sight...”
So I guess they are admitting that ‘Yutashi Hasaka’ is as real as Pichachu.
It is funny to see them run around trying to make excuses for being caught in stories that make no sense, when it would be much easier to just show their claimed teacher actually existed, if that were the case.
What many without my experience might miss is that in all the cases where this play on words was done, it actually makes sense. Yutashi does not. If the kanji of 遊武 were used to pronounce Yutaka, that would make sense. Instead of the standard way of writing a common name, they stretched the kanji for ‘play’ and ‘martial’ to fit. But saying that it is pronounced Yutashi makes no sense at all. Yutashi is not a Japanese word and can’t be found in sources like the Kenkyusha New Japanese-English Dictionary, which at close to 3000 pages is a very complete listing of any word in the Japanese language.
If you are a fan of Occam’s Razor, your obviously conclusion would be that an inept martial artist tried to create a Japanese name to make the stuff he picked up off of sources like Youtube and threw together look legitimate. Of course, most people can’t tell a real Japanese name from Yutashi. So the lesson for most of those reading this is that whenever someone tries dropping a Japanese name for their teacher, be very cautious. If they aren’t willing to even show they really existed, after listing them in public, then you are best served by walking away and going elsewhere.
Again, extra ordinary claims require proof. As amusing as seeing Gordon and Hatfield run around trying to cover over their lies, this case does serve as a lesson for others in what to watch out for.
https://martialartsfraudsandfakes.wordpress.com/2020/04/06/may-the-circle-jerk-be-unbroken-part-1/
https://medium.com/coto-academy/the-surprising-trend-of-kira-kira-names-in-japan-d30c9904f210