Need a favor-opinons please

[Shaolindynasty]

Somebody asked me what I thought of this school. They formally belonged to a shady school and don't want to get taken again. http://www.zenkido.com.

Also he is from Dallas TX and I said I would help him find a good school there, do you guys know of any?

[wufupaul]

I've never seen that school before, and the site didn't tell go into detail about the styles and what exactly they practice there. The school in Richardson is about 5 minutes from my house, maybe I'll go check it out sometime. There are lots of schools around here; what type of school is your friend looking for? Internal, external, northern, southern, etc? The two biggest names around here for traditional cma are Johnny Lee www.leeswhiteleopardkungfu.com , and Jimmy Wong www.chinwoo.com If you need more schools, I can list a bunch of them.

[African Tiger]

I dunno, sounds like a load of crap to me.

Especially that salute in their logo - don't they know that one hand with upward pointed fingers means "I challenge you"?

[Leonidas]

Yep it's bogus. I looked at the site for 3 seconds and knew. The first page says it all:

"Zen Ki Do is Shaolin Kung Fu combined with techniques from numerous martial arts forms (Pa Qua, Tai Chi, Aikido, and more).
(Isn't 4 enough)

We specialize in Inner Strength Kung Fu and the Five Animal Styles Kung Fu (dragon, tiger, leopard, snake, and crane)."

The name is also a give away. It's called Zen-Ki-Do and they teach Kung fu. A Japanese name for a combined art of 4 unrelated styles. The classic way of making up your own style and throwing all the Japanese words you know together to make it sound cool and official.

[shaolinboxer]

I'm afriad I have to agree with Leonidas.

This fellow sounds like our typical jack of all trades, master of none.

Then again, he may know something worth learning. If he really has studied for 26 years, I'd hope he'd picked up something of value.

[guohuen]

Once again. A Chinese Gong Fu school with a Japanese name?

[Repulsive Monkey]

Whenever I see an advert that says we incorporate this and that ( in this instance meditation etc.) into our art this is always a big give away. I mean if it was a whole art it already have these things in it as a foundation. It sounds like they are trying to weld several elements together to try and create an amalgamed whole which from the sounds of doesn't sound too likely. I just try and find a decent teacher of a single art instead of a pot-pouri of arts which I supsect are half learnt anyway.

[norther practitioner]

Yeah, I agree with r. monkey. Lets add this and this to shaolin (which already as external, internal, and meditation, etc.). Oh, and whenever I really hear the word "do" when someone is refering to cma, it usually translates to Homer Simpson's D'OH in my mind...

[JWTAYLOR]

Simply craptacular.

JWT

[Colin]

OK, so we've got a CMA with a jap name have we never seen this before!

What about Tai Kyoku Kempo. Trad CMA's with a jap name. (No disrespect to Red-fist)

Shorinj kempo. OK thats not a good one as it is *******isation of CMA.

Or American kempo!

I think that rather than saying he's crap maybe someone should go take a look!

Before anyone says anything, I am in no way connected to this group. I only saw their site today, but the instructor had a honest face! and I think everyone should be given a fair chance.

Am I going soft or what?

Oh Yea! African tiger??
So their bow position is a little upright!
how do you bow in your americanised CMA of America kempo with a nipponised name?

I say this because we use a similar bow, with left palm to right knuckles (second set). Surely this is a traditional bow? see http://www.laugar.org.uk


regards
Colin...........

PS there ain't no tigers in Africa!
Or are they more like the Arctic penguin!:D

[Repulsive Monkey]

You say the man has a fair face!! Well all we did was look for certain signs too, ie.e in the self accredited description of the art and the school, and it had some blaringly obvious signs which were as obvious as the fairness of his face. Yes, you are right the proof of the pie is in the eating, and until then we can only comment on the self endorsed (lets remember they have decided to put this info out in relation to advertising themsleves) advertisement for the mixture of arts they have fragmented together. When I say mixture and fragment this is totally the case as I would only trust someone to teach me correct Taiji, Bagua or Hsing-Yi if they had mastered it to a certain degree and had some deep understanding of the info they were passing over to me, and in this case one might as well learn the whole art. The advert unfortunately smells like something bad in the wind!!

[norther practitioner]

"Yes, you are right the proof of the pie is in the eating,"

Actually, the proof of the pie is... well some time after the eating... When it is time for what you put in to come out, it is either a monsoon or a drought.

[MonkeySlap Too]

Ask your friend to contact this guy:

victor.ke@fritolay.com

and see where he is teaching. He's in the American Shuai Chiao Association. I don't know him as well as the other master instructors- in fact I really don't know him, but he's got to be good.

[KC Elbows]

While I agree that whenever I see schools mixing so much, it makes me nervous, I've noticed that to certain people, if you preface it with "JKD", its OK.

Nothing against JKD, just an observation.

[Shaolindynasty]

I also didn't like the way they strung together a bunch of unrelated arts together to form their style. I was suspicious of this place and refered him to the Chin Woo org down there. I am not sure how near Dallas they are though. He is a former Chung Mo Doe guy I think and he is not really particular about the art as long as it's real. At least I think, I don't really know him but he asked me to help him through my website.

[Leonidas]

Tell your friend it's better to be safe than sorry. They don't sound official so maybe he should check out Chin Woo or the school run by Johnny Lee. Theres are a bunch of good schools in Texas. I recall a Hung Gar school down there somewhere.

Tell him to check it out but not to be talked into joining. Think about it. They teach a Shaolin, Pakua, Tai Chi, and Aikido (and more) mix. Combining just 2 of those would be a challlenge let alone 4 and 5 at once. Everyone has an honest face until they rip you off for everything you own. Thats what salesmen do.

[sanchezero]

"While I agree that whenever I see schools mixing so much, it makes me nervous, I've noticed that to certain people, if you preface it with "JKD", its OK. "

ROTFLMAO
:D

So true. Why is that?

[xiong]

I briefly attended Jimmy Wong's school in Richardson. It was pretty good, I think they do have a good curriculum. A few things to note, the student instructors ran most of the classes when I ws there, they have a sash ranking system, sometimes the "young" instructors would try to pull the give me pushups for being late crap.

Just my observations and personal hangups. I didn't stay there long as it was too far to drive to make it there on time consistantly after work, but I thought it was pretty decent Kung Fu.

You also might look up Parks and Recreation. The city of Plano P&R had a Kung Fu class at the Vines High School (Plano Pkwy east of Coit?) run by Wei Chen Ni. That was very casual. He knew his stuff but the main thrust of the course was to learn as many forms as possible, he polled the students for what they wanted to learn, rather than teaching in an ordered progression. I didn't stick with that because I felt we didn't spend enough time on forms to get them right before moving to the next one. But perhaps I'm just slow.

Good luck to your friend in his search.