Will the Real Black Dragons Please stand up...

Listening to BDFS climates is quite fun... Right now there are three Black Dragon Fighting Societies all claiming to be descended from John Keehan A.K.A. Count Dante's Martial Arts Fraternity that encouraged cross training in the martial arts & pioneered full-contact karate. So who is the Real deal? Will the Real Black Dragon Fighting Society please stand up?

Lets start with the three organizations... There are is the International Fighting Arts Association Black Dragon Fighting Society, the South African Black Dragon Fighting Society and the Fall River Black Dragon Fighting Society... First off, lets get all this straightened out right now... The South African IFAA/BDFS is part of the American IFAA/BDFS. In fact it's head, Grandmaster Stoffel Van Vuuren, who is am amazing martial artist, along side Grandmaster Ashida Kim and Grandmaster Lawrence Day began the IFAA/BDFS and had it registered in South Africa as a direct insult to William "Bill" Aguilar the Third. Who tried to sue Ashida Kim and Floyd Web in 2008 over a documentary film Floyd Web was making about John Keehan/Count Dante. Quite frankly, Bill saw his law suit suit terminated on May 3rd 2010. And reading about the judge's ruling in an earlier motion in favor of Floyd Webb we can see why...

Grandmaster Stoffel's Black Dragon Fighting Society was created to razz Bill Aguiar as he'd have to take any copyright or trademark infringement claims to a court in South Africa. Even looking a Grandmaster Stoffel Van Vuuren's website, http://www.blackdragon.co.za/Black_Dragon_Fighting_Society.html we see the International Fighting Arts Association Black Dragon Fighting Society displayed.

 So the South African Black Dragons are also associated with the American Black Dragons and we are, while legally two separate organizations, functionally one family of martial artists. The International Fighting Arts Association Black Dragon Fighting Society. Then we face the issue of lineage... Lineage is generally not important, Hatsumi can trace his "ninjutsu" to Takamatsu but Takamatsu was openly accused of making up his ninjutsu in the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten. So issues of who was your teacher don't really matter unless you are trying to trace everything back to a specific source... in this case Count Dante or John Timothy Keehan.

So lets discuss Grandmaster Stoffel's lineage to Count Dante, as a member of Ashida Kim's Black Dragon Fighting Society Grandmaster Van Vuuren traces his teaching to Ashida Kim & Lawrence Day who were both students of John Keehan. The present head of the IFAA/BDFS is Grandmaster Donald Miskel who help Count Dante found the Black Dragon Fighting Society and was another direct student of Keehan's. Remember Keehan was a "Karate-Guy" but encouraged and believed in cross training in all available martial arts at the time; Judo, Karate, Kung-fu, Boxing & Wrestling. This was a matter of training philosophy and self-defense methodology for Keehan. I will let his own words from World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets convince you...

This is only half the list, you have to buy the book to get the rest of the information but clearly you can see where Count Dante did not limit himself to one style of martial arts or one means of training as per the tradition of martial arts. Keehan was also heavily against Racism in and out of Martial Arts.

So who is William Aguiar the third? Bill 3, is the son of William Aguiar Jr. a martial artist who gained his rank outside of the Chicago era in the 60s and wanted to join Count Dante's Black Dragon Fighting Society. Bill Jr., was made head of the BDFS after convincing John Keehan to create the Dante system, then Bill Jr. Dropped the BDFS name and association in 1970. In 1975 Ashida Kim was first recorded using the Black Dragon Fighting Society name. So when Bill 3, filed for trademark in 1998 and brought suit against Ashida Kim and Floyd Webb in 2008, his trademark was cancelled on December 16th, 2006. More so, under US trademark law, the name Black Dragon Fighting Society had been associated with Ashida Kim since 1975, with Grandmaster's Miskel and Day since it was created in 1960. So how do you claim, to own something or patient something someone else has been using since before you were born, much less registered the trademark after the fact? There s the secondary issue, that while Bill 3 claim his father, Bill Jr. taught him martial arts, he can provide my proof of this. So while possible without proof, no one will recognize him as a 10th Dan at 28 years old. Muchless having fought professional sumo wrestlers at 15 and having ties to the mafia.

Remember lineage is only important when tracing yourself to someone or something. Someone claiming to have learned "ninjutsu" doesn't mean anything unless they are claiming to have learned it from someone or somewhere specific. So lineage is a much more important issue to those in the Takamatsuden who are claiming that Togakure Ryu is the root of all ninjutsu in Japan and using the modern research and translations create a modern system then myself, Ashida Kim, Frank Dux, Stoffel Van Vuuren, Christa Jacobson or anyone claiming to have learned "ninjutsu" but not trying to claim a link to the past. I have openly admitted and so have other named, to mixing arts and using what i felt was superior from other systems and arts, to include my own US Army Infantry training. However, to claim a link to John Keehan I must refer to my membership in the IFAA/BDFS and Grandmaster's Donald Miskel and Ashida Kim. Bill 3 is trying to rely on fraudulant claims and fraudulent legal filings...

From the US Patient & Trademark Office:

 Above is the original filing by William Aguiar the 3rd, with his trademark filling filed on October 2nd 1998. Please note that Ashida Kim's claim goes back to 1975, via his first use of the BDFS name and logo in his book, Book of the Ninja, thus making it an unregistered trademark. Bill 3's trademark was filed over 20 years later...

Bill 3 had decided to register the name Black Dragon Fighting Society. April 7th 2007, months before his lawsuit against Ashida Kim and Floyd Webb but again. How can you file legal suit against some for an unregistered trademark, you register over 20 years after the fact. Of course, Bill 3 isn't filing suit again he is instead trying to cause people problems over the net. His trademark is an empty and hollow, paper temple for a service mark without a service. As far as the South African brothers go, well here Grandmaster Stoffel, with Grandmasters Ashida Kim, and Lawrence Day. Oh and I was there, even got the T-Shirt and pictures to prove it (Hell I'm wearing the shirt in the picture), with Frank Dux, Sky Benson, Paul Dyer and others...

So don't let liars and frauds confuse you, lineage to Dante/Keehan is as simple as who signed the rank certificates and who has pictures with "the Master" Count Dante. It takes more then a title and belt to be a martial artist and it takes more then some sketchy legal claim to call yourself Black Dragon Fighting Society.

Note: I am writing this in response to someone claiming there is division and trying to insight online trolls. I won't name this person just yet but felt to preemptively stop any controversy ASAP. I do so without the expressed permission or instruction to do so from the IFAA/BDFS leadership.