Anyone heard of this instructor?

[b18c1]

His name is Eo Omwake.
His website is www.flowinghands.com

I am considering becoming a student of his. He claims to have studied with serveral top masters from both the USA and China. He lists who on the website if you click on "learn more about our school here" and then clicking on the "founder" link.
I think he has also been published several times in Tai Chi Magazine and Qi Magazine.

Anyone know him or heard anything about him?

Thanks

Ethan

[Vapour]

The guy's discription of taijichuan don't seems to have any content of martial arts. If if learned from proper master, he would have learned it as an effective form of self defence even if his aim of learning it was for health or spirituality. My guess is that the guy do external martial arts and picked up taijiquan as a good way to strech.

Then, obviously, I never seen him perform so I could be wrong. But my experience is that legitimate practioner do empahsise both martial as well as qigong aspect of taijiquan.

[Laughing Cow]

Agree with Vapour.

His description of Tai Chi (should be Tai Chi Chuan) sounded like the feel-good/health type.

Couldn't find anything on who he studied under or what styles he teaches.

Writing articles for magazines does not neccessarily mean the he is good or very knowledgable.

Will need to go through my stack of T'ai Chi magazines to see if I can find an article by him.

Cheers.

[RAF]

"Mr. Omwake has trained with many of the top masters from the United States and China, including Grandmaster Fu Zhong-Wen, the lineage heir to Yang Tai Chi, Master James Qing Quan Fu, the lineage heir to Yang Tai Chi, Yang Zhen Duo, the family heir to Yang Family, Jou Tsung-Hua, T.T. Liang, Yang Jwing-Ming, He Wei Chi, Liang Shou Yu, Wang Wei-Lun, Chang Chung-Jen. He has also studied with Wally Jay, Ed Parker, Joe Lewis, Sam Masich, and other Kung Fu, Karate, and Tai Chi teachers."

I don't know him personally but he was a judge at the 1997 Taste of China tournament. The above is found under about the school, click on founder.

His "external" style includes bjj, shuai jiao and bunch of other stuff and he is a member of a daoist order.

He was a very tough judge at the one Taste of China tournament I attended. If anyone has seen his tapes, please post.

[Brad]

His description of Tai Chi (should be Tai Chi Chuan) sounded like the feel-good/health type.
Could just be an advertising ploy... You'll bring in more students teaching Taiji for health than martial arts. It'd be best to make sure to let him know if you're interested in Taiji as a martial art and talk to him about his thoughts on it.

[Vapour]

Originally posted by Brad

Could just be an advertising ploy... You'll bring in more students teaching Taiji for health than martial arts. It'd be best to make sure to let him know if you're interested in Taiji as a martial art and talk to him about his thoughts on it.

That is indeed a possibility. Having said it, I could learn from all these masters over weekend course if I have money. What seems to me is that he is decent in external martial arts. That does not make you being qualified to teach internal arts.

I once bought a book by Wong Kiew Kit titled "Tai Chi Chuan". I regretted buying it afterward. His interpretation of taijiquan is very Shaolin and he even adimit that his expertise is not taijiquan. One should not judge the book by it cover and that was exactly what I did in buying that book.

[dezhen2001]

the book is good for historical stuff though i think :)

dawood

[patriot]

"Mr. Omwake has trained with many of the top masters from the United States and China,including Grandmaster Fu Zhong-Wen, the lineage heir to Yang Tai Chi, Master James Qing Quan Fu, the lineage heir to Yang Tai Chi, Yang Zhen Duo, the family heir to Yang Family, Jou Tsung-Hua, T.T. Liang, Yang Jwing-Ming, He Wei Chi, Liang Shou Yu, Wang Wei-Lun, Chang Chung-Jen. He has also studied with Wally Jay, Ed Parker, Joe Lewis,Sam Masich, and other Kung Fu, Karate, and Tai Chi teachers."

Attending 1 or 2 seminars does not constitute "training" with the master. It is unfortunate far too many instructors mislead the students by inflating their credentials. I bet if you ask any of the above listed masters, they would have no clue who this Omwake guy is or would acknowledge that he was one of their students.

[count]

Originally posted by RAF
"Mr. Omwake has trained with many of the top masters from the United States and China, including Grandmaster Fu Zhong-Wen, the lineage heir to Yang Tai Chi, Master James Qing Quan Fu, the lineage heir to Yang Tai Chi, Yang Zhen Duo, the family heir to Yang Family, Jou Tsung-Hua, T.T. Liang, Yang Jwing-Ming, He Wei Chi, Liang Shou Yu, Wang Wei-Lun, Chang Chung-Jen. He has also studied with Wally Jay, Ed Parker, Joe Lewis, Sam Masich, and other Kung Fu, Karate, and Tai Chi teachers."


:eek: This guy must be amazing with a resume like that. Anyone know if it's true? My library isn't even that extensive.

[RAF]

His background is cut and pasted from his website. He has been around since the days I went to Jou Tsung Hwa's tai chi farm in the 1980s.

I am pretty sure his taiji qi gong is the version that Jou Tsung Hwa taught but beyond that I don't know too much other than he was a pretty harsh judge and he is part of the Taste of China circuit.

His place burned down and they carried a story about him in the Qi magazine some years back and he has had to rebuild from scratch.

Beyond that, not much else to say.

[b18c1]

Hmmm... mixed replies. :confused:

RAF, what's your impression of him?... you saw him judge.

Anything I can do to learn more about him?

Should I go to his school and ask him some questions? If so, what are some of the questions I should ask.

Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks
Ethan

[HuangKaiVun]

From looking at his photos, he seems like a modern style wushu stylist. Good too.

As far as traditional combat kung fu goes, I'd venture a "no".

Go see him, talk to him, watch a class.

[RAF]

Sorry I cannot offer you anymore information. Go the the Qi Journal and Tai Chi magazine for someof his writings.

I can only repeat that hs is a very harsh judge, an outlier on the low side and of course, I am biased. He judged a Yang taiji sword competition.

He may very well be a good teacher but you must go and find this out for yourself.

Sorry I cannot be of more help.

Good luck.

[GLW]

A clarification on judging...

The judging method is to have a head judge and then 5 scoring judges. The head judge provides guidance and resolves issues with the scoring (sanity and all) as well as handling overall deductions (over and under time, etc...)

The scoring judges - the high and low score are dropped and only come into play if there is a tie.

All scoring judges KNOW this.

It is expected that with a good group of judges - all things being right - any judge's score will drop out 40% of the time (2/5 = 40%) and should count 60% of the time.

If you judge and are ALWAYS the low score, as a judge, you MAY be giving a valid score...but you are removing yourself from having any impact on who wins or loses.

The NUMERICAL score counts only in national rankings. In who wins first, second, third, it doesn't matter.

So, if you are a WISE judge, you pay attention to the PLACEMENT of your scores so that within your own scores, the person that YOU give the highest score to is the one that you think is the best, and so on for second, third, etc...

AND...here is the kicker that so many judges can't grasp - You make sure that your score does NOT drop out too much. If you are scoring low, raise your score a bit - AT THE BEGINNING in the first judges meeting.

If you always score low or always score high and you always drop out, you might as well not be there. This is actually almost as bad as scoring crazy.