Recently I found a little dojo when I was out bike riding. It was a place run by a Grandmaster Irving Soto. I looked him up online and found quite the list of red flags. His site can be viewed here:
http://sokesoto.tripod.com/
Some of his big claims:
10th Degree Black Belt Cover Red Belt
Last Heir to Atemi-Jitsu, Atemi Aiki-Jitsu, Kyu-Jitsu Aiki-Jitsu Atemi
8-Time Undisputed World Kumite Champion
Undisputed Jujitsu Champion
Undisputed Kickboxing Champion
Last Heir to Atemi-Jitsu, Atemi Aiki-Jitsu, Kyu-Jitsu Aiki-Jitsu Atemi
I sent him this email:
Quote:
Greetings Grandmaster Soto, I recently drove by your dojo and it led me to your website. I was wondering if you could answer some questions I have.
-What style of jujutsu do you study/train, and who gave you your jujutsu rank?
-Is the kumite you're the undisputed champion of 8X the same Kumite referenced in the movie Bloodsport?
I am asking this on behalf of Bullshido, a martial arts consumer advocate website.
Thank you for your time.
There's video of him in action on Youtube:
Looks like pretty standard dead pattern JJ, no aliveness shown, but whatever. Looks like they're either hamming it up or he likes to hurt ukes, which I don't approve of.
More of the same:
I really don't get the Keep-Cranking-While-They-Furiously-Tap styles.
There's dozens of youtube vids of him but they mostly seem to be the same type of stuff you see above.
He seems to be linked to other 10th Dans as well and one of his demos is at a Hall of Fame thing, and he has Hanshi Soke Grandmaster before his name, which makes me suspect that his rank is from one of those World Sokeship Council type orgs.
Also I think I might possibly see some evidence of tampering in this photo:
I've gone through the site and taken screen grabs and stuff.