That Old Song and Dance - Gerald J. Greysmith
That Old Song and Dance
By
Gerald J. Greysmith
It seems that it is inevitable to continue to cover the strange case of Bret Gordon and Steven Hatfield. How I have longed for the days of variety but such as it is they continue to outdo themselves regularly. It’s almost as if someone is genuinely holding their beers and off they run to throw themselves headfirst against a concrete embankment of some sort. Yes, it would seem that daily these two stallions of the martial arts find new and even more inventive ways to make themselves into what has become a long-running gag in the martial arts community.
Happier times when these men thought no one would ever question them.
At the time of this writing Bretty-baby, out of nowhere, decided to challenge Dale Dugas to meet him at his school and get on the mat with him on November 12th, 2020. What could have prompted this after the last instance where our shameless headmaster went to lengths to appear to want the challenge once issued to him by Dale, but in reality took steps to avoid him at all costs? He even went as far as ending with a threat to call the cops on the guy.
He followed this stunt up with what I covered in my last article, “A New Man Indeed,” whereas Gordon using his self-given Sherlock Holmes divination scryed into his Magic Eight Ball and ascertained that yours truly was a combination of Barron Shepherd and Dale Dugas together. I think he still is waiting for the time-stamped and dated picture of Barron’s arm and to this day the best he will get is the nice sweaty one of Barron post-workout that is on BSMA as of today.
It is clear from that pic that Gordon lifted from the social media account of my persona that the arm in question is not Barron’s at all, nevermind the testimony which comes from people who genuinely knew the former Gerald himself, no, no, and more no….Bret is determined to stay relevant at this point and I think this is his gambit to do so even if he is proven dead-wrong (which has happened quite a few times by now.) As anyone with two brain cells they can rub together can see Barron has no tats on said arm. Still he had not redacted his article on this matter and I doubt he ever will. Such is his gullibility on the matter of the true identity of me, myself and I. I wonder often if his face drained as he saw his "detective work" go down in flames as he realized he had been, in fact, played...I suppose I shall never know.
I want to point out as an aside he came to the attention of the larger martial arts world, or industry as he calls it, when Lordus Sapiens covered him and his teacher’s claims in his now well-regarded “Circle Jerk” series and when he wrote an article on the aforementioned Shepherd. In it he claimed over and over how fake and fraudulent Shepherd is only to have the entirety of the article debunked completely. To this day he has not redacted anything he said. He simply doubled and eventually tripled down on this matter while triumphantly "earning" a "nidan" in Judo.
This has been followed up with continually changing his story regarding his own Korean arts lineage multiple times. Using the amazing powers that are readily available on the Weebly platform he heroically changed the history of his American Jidokwan Association many, many times. So many in fact that it nary resembles the original site as it was.
He was found to have not only appropriated a dead webpage from a well-known Jidokwan master out of Virginia but he also attempted to steal the legacy of one Master Fuzy and his wife, friends, students and others who had their lives impacted in a positive manner. Lordus Sapiens did a great cover of these events and you should read them here.
What is so strange now is the simple fact that not only is Dr. Dugas receiving challenges from Bret himself but he also is getting what appears to be threats from Steven Hatfield as well. You remember him, right? The big guy from Ohio? Yeah, he’s sending threats via the thread to Dale from the safety of Ohio. Like, twenty hours away or something.
But at least this time Hatfield isn’t using Bret as the proverbial meat shield we have seen him be for so long. No dear readers it seems this time around Hatfield himself has entered the fray and appears to have ALSO issued a challenge directly at Dale. I do so hope we get so see some quality Judo or Goju Ryu this time. I as well as many others were so vastly disappointed with his last videos. The master belt was a nice touch, however.
Ah well, what can we say? He never could decide on a rank for the longest and in fact even went as far as changing his own narrative to say his Judo rank was 5th dan and the 7th dan was a gaffe by the webmaster. As was his BDFS membership and several other things which now stink to high heaven. This includes his original story about a teacher which is now hemmed into the life of one William Sirbaugh.
But then our boy Steve-o changed that Judo rank up and said it was an “honorary rank.” As my predecessor said many times and I say again. Any rank earned from Jack Stern should be treated as questionable. And building your legacy on the back of a man who is both dead and was outed as a fraud way back in 1996(ish) is totally not something I would want on a resume. It would be like having a child molester write you a letter of character reference and tell everyone how awesome you are.
Oh, right. You did do that. I almost forgot.
They even got his wife to do the same. They defended his actions in a roundabout way in an attempt to stem the outrage against themselves for doing such a thing as having a man like that on their webpage for American Jidokwan for so long.
Then came the infamous SafeSport article, but there is so much more to the situation than Gordon would have you believe. Because as SafeSport told me and several others by that point Gordon had already deleted him from his page and all wrong-doing was no longer there. And under their policies and procedures he had rectified the situation. But, SafeSport is watching and aware now. And I trust knowing he was certified by them, only to have a man like that on his site was a grave misstep by he and his friends.
Add to this Gordon’s responses to the entire affair have been bewildering to say the least. From calling the charges against Patrick vague, broad, and even posting a link claiming that the charges were dismissed…only to have it proven he did in fact spend two years in prison AND according to the SORN agency in Ohio Justice was required to be reporting his location to them as late as 2018 he was indeed not in compliance at the time they claim to have outed his background.
Yes, you read that right. At the time of them ousting Justice he was required to report in on specific dates assigned by the county of residence in Ohio. And as of early 2018 he was not in compliance with his registration.
And Gordon continued to leave him on that page and in full view of everyone. He would claim in emails with Gregory that this was due to historical information. He also would claim they didn’t feel the need to smear his name. In reality it was he had a huge gap there and it is possible they knew, and didn’t think anyone would ever look into the matter more closely than a cursory glance.
Darn that thing called research.
Why Cover Old Ground?
Well, because it is time to lay out the current situation. We are once again back in front of a full view of an alleged challenge again this time to Dr. Dale Dugas via Bret Gordon. And if you look at things correctly it would seem the invite expands to both Barron Shepherd and even yours truly as well. Yeah. I'm sure he would love having my ugly ass in his dojo. I can't speak for Dale or Barron but I have work to go to daily as well as actual BJJ training to attend. Something Hatfield could do, if he were so inclined.
So yes it truly appears that Gordon has inadvertently challenged Barron Shepherd in this as well. When prompted by Dugas in an exchange on his own social media the accupuncturist stated many times he is looking forward to November 12th and may even bring Shepherd with him. To this Gordon replied in the affirmative and that “he was looking forward to meeting him.”
I cannot speak for Gordon but the ramifications of this are pretty easy to see as a direct invite to the man who he defamed in his “article” back in May of this year.
In the days since this challenge was issued Gordon and Dugas have continued to have several back and forth messages to one another on their respective social media accounts. Adding to this is that Gordon made the challenge publicly on his Facebook account as of Friday, October 23rd, 2020. On the same thread around forty-eight hours later he changed his tactics. He stated he was merely picking back up the challenge as laid out by Dugas the first time. He even stated that “this was not” him challenging Dugas. So yeah, it appears the DIC tucking has begun (again.)
Speaking to Dugas by phone on October 25th, 2020, he reported that he is "still planning to visit on the 12th of November,” so at this point it seems the challenge is indeed on. So much in fact that it also appears that Gordon will be sending his waiver directly to Dugas himself. Whether this is by email or snail mail we have yet to see.
And so it would seem Dale has taken this seriously and is from the talks he and I have had the last few days since this happened that he is indeed planning to attend this "event." No word from Barron as yet, however.
And Where Is Hatfield?
It appears that after all these things have been said and done Gordon’s own teacher Steven Hatfield has also entered and issued his own challenge from the safety of his Technician Dojo in Ohio. Hatfield, as stated in many other articles to include some here on this very blog, bring into question some of the claims and associations which he keeps. As Lordus Sapiens recently pointed out on his own blog the man has changed his own background multiple times to include what appears to have happened sometime between 2017 and 2019. This includes the hot topic at the moment of the American Jidokwan Association which appears to have begun with himself, and then passed to Patrick Justice, then passed in 2017 over to Gordon which is the year they claim they found out about Justice’s felony record and conviction. Add to it that the history of the AmJido has been rewritten multiple times with an odd “disclaimer” at the bottom of the page by Gordon in what appears an effort to keep detractors appearing wrong and him appearing as a helpless victim of circumstance.
The circumstance here, though, is honesty. And if you tell the truth you will never be a victim to that.
This is something neither of them have seemed to be able to do. To be clear it has never been about whether or not they knew techniques or could apply them. No, it has always been about the claims they’ve made and the way in which they present themselves. And it seems when someone questions their claims or calls them out on what is apparently a pile of horse apples they turn and defame that person calling them out. This is a pattern followed many times by other luminaries to include Bodhi Sanders. I wonder what happened to that guy?
Whether it is Hatfield steering Gordon the way they’ve gone with his own stories and Gordon is a hapless lad who believes everything his teacher has told him, or together they have concocted these American Legends (the American Yoshinkan Aikijujutsu system, for example) makes their claims and embellishments that much more incredulous.
It was back in the Summer when Gregory contacted the Yoshinkan Hombu in Japan and they outright stated they had no records of anyone by the name Hasaka Yutashi training there or that the name even sounded Japanese. Gordon and Hatfield were quick with a plagiarized rebuttal showing his name was akin to the Pokemon Pikachu. The article, written by Gordon, drips with gloating as he feels the site he lifted the information from proves beyond a doubt the validity of his teacher, answers why he changed his name, and thus from there makes everything very nicely tied up in a neat bow. I imagine he saw in his mind his detractors running in terror at the realization that Yutashi’s name is from the same alphabet that gave us fun Japanese anime words. Truly this is almost like being in a slice of life anime.
Literally, yes. Gordon stated in his own blog how one of his favorite names from this stolen information lifted directly from the site was “Yutashi.” Therefore because he did this we are all immediately wrong. Never you mind the conditions by which his claims were made and the way he has spun to keep it out of the limelight since then. Oh no, by that account we were all terribly wrong despite the giggles heard on the phone and by email from those with knowledge of the situation.
But wait, I forget. Gordon did post a screenshot of a message between he and the Daito Ryu community and has valiantly declined to tell who he spoke to. I guess I have this research thing all wrong. It’s not about facts or what can be proven. Hell at this point it isn’t about speculation or offering options to consider. Why no, we need only post out of context material and make it where we can prove our side because…we said so.
Yet through all of this Hatfield remained quiet however Gregory and Lordus both launched their own investigations into his background beginning with the AmJido stuff. And boy, howdy, was it lengthy and quite a long and deep rabbit hole. What was found was not very pretty.
According to their convoluted and (now) unproven history Master Fuzy, the man who they claimed had trained with Sirbaugh and Davis and “founded “ the system “together” actually had students who were there and had never, ever heard of Sirbaugh nor had they heard of Hatfield or Gordon. As I said earlier Gordon wrote a nice article essentially flipping his middle finger up at the widow of Master Fuzy and those who carry the legacy onwards to a new generation today. I myself spoke to another of the men who was in the know, a man who is I hope willing to give a full statement that I can publish at the end of this. And my, he was very disgusted with the fraud perpetrated by these men. He was even more alarmed at the fact they kept Justice on their site for so long and then flaunted a SafeSport card around as a “get out of trouble” card. Our email exchange was quite direct as he was not happy these men were making such ridiculous claims. Oh, and he knew Sensei Buddy Brown. Yes, he spoke very highly of him and said, I quote, “he is one of the most honest people I have ever known.”
And in typical fashion that is the Dynamic Duo it would seem through all of this that they have decided to not own their claims but rather stand their ground and heroically change their AmJido site as often as needed, facts be damned. Why worry about truth when you can simply make reality whatever you want it to be?
It seems that Hatfield banked everything on his history to link to his stepfather, a William D. Sirbaugh. And with that being a public claim it would appear they forget that means the burden to prove these things fall onto them.
Well since they haven’t been forthcoming allow me to give you a small rundown of the Sirbaugh and his alleged history as it was, taken from their own website.
From the AmJido website:
It goes onto detail that Hatfield upon returning to Ohio began training in a Karate system founded by a Master Clarence West. This much is true, as the inheritor of that system is one Master James Parrish who, along with Hatfield on a conference call reached out to Cayce Lancaster, the former legal analyst for Greysmith Investigations and former owner of the Konigun Ninjers blog. In that call it was relayed that Parrish did endorse Hatfield.
Great news! We verified one claim. However this claim was not enough for Hatfield it would seem. You see, as Lordus Sapiens has pointed out in one of his articles on the matter Hatfield himself does indeed have a convoluted history that somehow and magically overnight changed and his original teacher was changed to....Sirbaugh, his stepdaddy.
This is perplexing indeed. And so it began a long and arduous look into this man. This mythical, legendary man who through grit and sheer determination learned and passed onto his step-son many of the systems and styles they claim legitimacy through such as the Aikijujutsu, the Jidokwan, the Hanki....it all relied on him.
And you know what? Seeing the reaction Gordon had with the reveal of the past of former AmJido Prez, Justice, I wonder if the same reaction is forthcoming now.
Because when Gregory released just the picture of Justice back in August within hours Gordon scrubbed his site of the man. And I mean ALL TRACES, save for his "PSA's." Funny thing, that was. Hell, it was the next day when Don Roley, Lordus, and Cayce as well began releasing their blogs that the questions began. He didn't even wait!
As for Sirbaugh it appears to me that Hatfield himself has banked a lot his training history on this dude. And while it may be possible Sirbaugh may have learned some things I consider the fact that they have taken such strides to hide their own past histories as well as others’ who are with them to bring to question some major fallacies in their tellings. Many, many fallacies, dips, dodges, and ducks all along the way as it has been shown.
I have to ask this Gordon, and to you Hatfield. Since you seem chatty all of a sudden that is.
For all the history of your American Jidokwan and Yutashi and everything else you hold onto, the spins and turns you’ve taken with it, the ways in which you ran with it here to there in order to keep people off your trail….
…I have to ask the question now. And I truly hope you are willing to answer this one without a spin. Because by now your site has been unchanged long enough to warrant no changes even with your “disclaimer,” I would think maybe this time you might be a bit more open to those asking questions about your publicly stated stories.
Do tell me gentlemen…because this is strikingly curious to think about.
Please enlighten us as to truth of the man you claim lineage to. Because if records are proving correctly things may not be as they seem. Please Gordon, Hatfield, I beg of you. Do tell the world now. Because if any of this rings true it could truly, definitely hurt your timeline of events in a critical way.
Who is William Sirbaugh, really?
Comments
Post a Comment