People like that aren't stable, and are probably not that good anyways. They cling to whatever they earned because that's all they have. It's all ego and mental instability on his part. So I wouldn't give it a second thought.

You have ego too. You wrote this question down and you were upset by the experience. Your ego felt hurt by the experience. If you had no ego to begin with, you probably wouldn't have given a sh*t. You're just starting out so I don't blame you. But ego is what drives people to fight over petty sh*t, like this guy did. But when you drop the ego, you stop caring if you lose or not. Which makes you fight better. The samurai meditated on dying. They wished for death to come for them? Why? Because if you no longer feared dying, then you'd do so much better on the battlefield, because you wouldn't be nervous and scared. Same concept.

Good luck

EDIT: I didn't even read the part about him kicking your a$$. I'm with JW, I don't believe this happened either.

Why am I'm not believing this happened?

This sounds like some karate kids movie storyline.

The instructor sets up the student to lose in order to teach the student about his ego. Now student learns a valuable lesson in regards to his own ego.

Instructor says show up at the park at 4pm. Instructor is not there, but another martial artist is there by "coincidence". Instructor never shows and cocky student with little experience loses to experienced person.

Sounds like something I've watched before.

Maybe it is just my suspicious nature.

So when the guy got smug, what kept you from saying: "Hey, I am sorry but I got to go. It was nice meeting you, bye." and then walk away? Being able to diffuse a sticky situation is part of being a martial artist. Did you stay in the hope you could convince him that you are good at what you are doing? That is misplaced vanity and not part of your martial art. Lose the ego and what happened will be much easier to deal with.

BTW where was your teacher in all this? Just wondering.

You have to think positive in a fight you can not think to your self o crap im going to lose because if you do and not think positive you will lose automatically

I showed up at a martial arts practice to meet my instructor at the park. Then some guy and a kid sat down in the bench adjacent from me holding some fishing rods. I did not know there were fish in the lake so I asked if they caught anything and the younger guy said in the most smug tone of voice, "I caught a catfish down there."

The older guy saw I had two eskrima sticks with me. He started talking mad smack about how he's won such and such competition and practiced many arts for 40 years, as well as how he has more experience than me - a 19 year old.

I respect experience, but his abrasive arrogance was just annoying so I tried ignoring him. He got closer and that raised alarms and thenhe said he wanted to show me that my art was useless if I get rushed. I said that I'm sure what matters more is the person, then he argued more and then the guy basically gave me an *** kicking. I've only been doing this less than a year, I don't know how to apply it that well.

So then the whole time the guy was condescending to me and talking mad smack once more. He even carried pictures with him of his championships.

I just don't know how to handle losing this. I understand why, but ouch. This hurts.