SCAM THE EGO

The "Martial Arts Hall of Fame" is one of the most wretched and vile aspects of what SOME people consider "martial arts" in the world. They exist for only 4 reasons: It provides fans with a way to purchase the opportunity to rub shoulders with martial arts "celebrities".

It provides "martial artists" with no notable skills or achievements with no real track record, a way to buy status and accolades.

It simply provides martial arts "celebrities" and "celebrity wannabes" with "networking and business" opportunities. Earn money for promoters and sellers.

These things are the most negative constructions in the world of martial arts because:

They perpetuate and encourage the idea that being famous and notorious is more important and remarkable than technical mastery and humility.

They perpetuate the belief that status (whether real or not) is just as valuable (if not more so) than actual skill or knowledge.

They perpetuate and encourage the practice of BUYING status, rather than actually earning it through hard work and making measurable contributions to martial arts. So, let's make a short list of keywords that succinctly describe what these events are really about: stroke his ego Celebrity and notoriety manufactured status purchased state earn easy money

What does all this have to do with martial arts?: NOTHING!

Here is a list of things these events DO NOT do:

They DO NOT promote martial arts as a physical, spiritual and/ or intellectual pursuit to improve people's lives.

They do NOT encourage the technical development of any specific martial art or of martial arts as a whole.

They do NOT endorse the efforts of practitioners, athletes, coaches, or instructors in any useful or meaningful way.

They are simply NOT events that add to the values of "martial arts", but actually embody a list of qualities that are the complete ANTITHESIS of martial arts.

Martial arts events like these have done much to lower the standards of martial arts and are strictly about making money, feeding egos and providing people who are not worthy of the title of "martial artist" or "black belt", with the means to fraudulently acquire status. The typical method in which individual members nominate each successive batch of nominees/ inductees is by referring their friends to promoters who then submit a proposal package; EVERYONE wins something and then has to pay in some way (organizational membership, dinner, whatever), requiring as many attendance as possible to receive the prize.

It is a marketing scam designed to attract people and pay for an event that is held with the aim of making someone a lot of money. That's why they call it the "vanity prize scam." In some industries, people pay tens of thousands of dollars for these things. It is a game where they manipulate people's egos, as well as taking advantage of the fact that they need to acquire a false status to succeed or be taken seriously in an environment where they want to enter.

Step 1: Tell someone they've been "nominated by her peers" and won an award,

Step 2: Inform him that assistance is required to receive that award that will help him walk the road to fame and fortune,

Step 3: Contact them with all the rates, promotions and add-ons. If you manage to create a good enough illusion of prestige, the ego takes over and they start sending the money.

Remember: Never underestimate a martial artist and her ego. No "award" that works in this way has any value or prestige towards serious referents. Notice even when these deluded people upload the photo when they are "honored", they are only "congratulated" by their peers..., not by the royal martial collective.

A REAL award would have a limited number of predefined categories each year. For the sake of discussion, we suggest a list of awards:

Pioneer of the Year,

Instructor of the Year (one for each of the personal defense systems, Trainer of the Year (one each of Kick Boxing, Point Sparring, Traditional Forms, Open Forms, Traditional

Grappling and MMA), Male and Female Sparring Athlete of the Year, Male and female forms: Athlete of the Year, Male and Female MMA Athlete of the Year, martial arts book of the year Martial Arts Product of the Year, Martial Arts Innovation of the Year...

Do you see that it is not difficult to do things well, before getting into nonsense?

With a transparent nomination process, with a set number of nominees per category (making it meaningful competition for the award, just start a closed FB group, take it out to about 1-2K instructors, post a link to a Survey Monkey form that counts the nominations and prevents people from filling out the “nomination box”).

A transparent and honest selection process where the selection committee, which is appointed, chooses the winners.

Nominees should receive 1 ticket to the banquet and awards ceremony and OH MY GOD they should not be expected to pay for the award in any way.

A transparent and honest selection process where the selection committee, which is appointed, chooses the winners.

Nominees should receive 1 ticket to the banquet and awards ceremony and OH MY GOD they should not be expected to pay for the award in any way.

A transparent and honest selection process where the selection committee, which is appointed, chooses the winners. Nominees should receive 1 ticket to the banquet and awards ceremony and OH MY GOD they should not be expected to pay for the award in any way.

Now, no one will ever do this, because if you had 20 real awards with 5 nominees each and each got a free ticket to the banquet and awards ceremony, at (say) $200 each, you would simply give away $20,000 worth of dinners.

No one is going to do that, even if they're honest, because the whole vanity awards thing is a business model designed to make money, not recognize excellence.

You have to make money on every butt you put on a seat, so the focus is on finding butts to put on seats, not managing a vetting process to recognize the best of the best, year after year.

Adding other things like a convention, trade show, clinics, seminars, and a tournament are steps in the right direction... but until people move away from the model I'm criticizing here and stop trying to figure out ways to get the prizes: being a cash cow, will always be an ego driven scam.