Dan Ranks

[wardancer]

I don't think it has to do with Dan ranking.
TMA is cursed with fake leaders that cannot fight.
The last charismatic Karate leader I have read about was Mas Oyama founder of the Kyokushin Karate, he also did lot of Challenge fight just like count Koma. He was the last Karateka apart maybe for Ashihara, the rest of of them are bureaucrats e.g JKA , Goju etc..
My BJJ team has Vale Tudo representatives and such teammates gave me all new perspective to MA.
I mean what I read or heard (since the first UFC 94') is actually happening in front of my eyes: who has the best MA?
ANd that is actually what is my instructor is doing by training vale tudo fighters.
BJJ has made its reputation/research on the Gracie Challenge.
In BJJ, you simply cannot fraud students if you do not have the skills, simply because BJJ instructors roll/spar daily with all their students on a daily basis.
Just being curious, where do you train?

[Jeremy Lobdell]

I train at JKDunlimited under Burton Richardson. The websight is www.jkdunlimited.com

I've personally seen a system self destruct after the death of the creator-GM. In Modern Arnis, when Professor Remy Presas past away, 3 people stepped up claiming that they were his designated successor and the new grand master. The system hasn't been the same since, and many highly regarded practitioners that I know have gone on to other FMA systems because they were tired of all the politics. It's really unfortunate that this kind of stuff happens, maybe this is why the Gracies guard their lineage so closely, they've learned from other systems mistakes.

[wardancer]

Well in Kyokushin Karate even if the leader left a legal paper to announce his next in line in terms of leadership, it stil created frictions and splits/factions.
It is the same in BJJ: helio is only the leader of one faction:
The academy closed in 1968. It was at about this time that the family spilt into factions—the Carlson faction and the Helio faction (there are also factions within the factions). Helio opened a smaller academy on Rua Humaita in Botafogo (where Royler and Rolker now teach). Carlson opened his own on Rua Figueiredo Magalhães in Copacabana, where Rolls also taught until his delta wing accident in 1982. Other academies were found at that time, some with and some without the Gracie seal of approval. http://www.geocities.com/global_trai...o_quatro.htmed