New Kung Fu school

[Rokto_Obotar]

I wana start Kung fu can you guys check out these sites and tell me what you think about these schools?
(I Think this one looks good http://www.cscsanjose.com/home.html internal and external) : price seems good ect... Except the masters at this place are only 2nd degree black belts anyone else have masters with ranks like that)?
http://www.cscsanjose.com/home.html
http://www.sifumeng.com/
http://ca.local.yahoo.biz/kungfu/
http://benskungfu.com/


(Ive only take japanese Kung Fu but I like eagle claw, mantis, wudang and Tiger style).
recomendations for schools in the Saratoga/San Jose california area are WELCOME!!!!

(EDIT) also this one http://www.rwcmt.com/ (im checkin these guys out tommarow)

[Mr Punch]

Let's see.

1) You have two links to the same guys.

2) There's no such thing as 'Japanese kungfu' so I don't know what you've been studying so far.

3) We have no way of telling you. Go along and check!

4) I guess you want fighting skills... I'd probably go with Rey's. From the photos looks fairly hardcore.

[Brad]

The CSC schools are an offshoot of Shaolin-Do, do a search on the forum to see the long threads arguing about their legitimacy. General consenus of non Shaolin-Do/CSC people isn't exactly positive.

I'd ask around about Sifu Meng too... There's defenitely more than one Sifu Meng out there, but I seem to remember one of them teaches phoney modern wushu/ kungfu out on that coast.

I'd start a seperate topic about Ben's Kungfu over on the Shaolin board (since he's a "monk"). You have to watch it with those "monks"...

There's a Wing Chun board here too if you want to ask some people about the Wing Chun/ MT mixed teacher.

BTW, what is "Japanese Kungfu"? Karate?

[Rokto_Obotar]

I ment:

(Ive only take japanese Martial Arts but I like the kung fu styles eagle claw, mantis, wudang and Tiger style).
recomendations for schools in the Saratoga/San Jose california area are WELCOME!!!!

What do you mean by "watch out for those monks?"

[Brad]

First you have to check to see if the guy is actually a monk like he says (quite a few are only students of monks with bald heads and robes, monks who left but retain the monk title and costume for purely comercial puposes, and others never set foot in the Shaolin Temple), second does the monk actually teach Shaolin martial arts? Many will teach contemporary wushu or bad Shaolin (Shaolin forms with no Shaolin basics or no application work). Shaolin is very comercial and attracts all kinds of bad eggs :p It's tough to find one that's both honest and good at what he claims to teach.

[TenTigers]

I'll go one step further. He's not a real monk =period. If he is a "real Monk" all that means is he's a wu-shu performer, who was placed in the temple and shaved his head to be a performer., just as the guys in Disneyland are not really "Mickey". If he is a real monk, he'd better be at least 80.
BTW-there also are no real monks at wu-dang,o-mei,Hua-Shan-which hasn't come up yet, but mark my words, Hua-Shan will be the next flavor of the week to be written about in the mags, and then suddenly there will be Hua-Shan expersts.

[Rokto_Obotar]

Couldnt taoist arts be in the shaolin categorie? also what is nanchuka and why couldnt it be an internal art or is it like a wushu?

Also wouldnt all martial arts places have some kind of Sash or belt ect...?

dosent this also look a little odd to you?
http://benskungfu.com/birthday_party.htm

This too it says improve grades??? im looking for a martial art school not a tutoring academy:
Scroll down its on the second sheet its in one of the check boxes
http://www.sifumeng.com/our_promotion.htm

[Brad]

Also wouldnt all martial arts places have some kind of Sash or belt ect...?
No. Most Chinese arts don't have belt systems, and for those that do it's an individual school/organization thing that's been added very very recently for buisness reasons.

[Brad]

Also what is nanchuka and why couldnt it be an internal art or is it like a wushu?
It's defenitely not wushu... nanchuka is supposed to be nunchucku (or numbchucks ;) :D ).

[Rokto_Obotar]

every martial art school has a belt system in my area. if some one could send me a website of a school that dosent have one. How else would the master know for each of his students when to advance them?

[Brad]

Advance them to what? If the student can demonstrate good skill in what he's taught, then the teacher can choose to teach him/her some new material. No need for a colored belt. From a student perspective though, I suppose belts can help them identify what their classmates should be good at if they need to ask someone for advice. Though more often than not, belts indicate what forms people have memorized and not how well they understand the material :(

[GeneChing]

As I mentioned on your parallel inquiry on the Shaolin forum, you should tune into this thread (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37527) - I did an article on Ben Zhang back in our Jan Feb 2004 issue (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=436).

As for the B-day party package, you'll find that the SF Bay Area is the most densely populated area of masters in the USA. Many of our little strip mall studios house national and international champions. That being said, it's a highly competative market here, and most consumers of martial arts are more interested in convenience than the acheivements of the masters, so these top level masters are struggling to survive. Belt systems, b-day packages, all sorts of odd marketing strategies are par for the course in our area. The bulk of the market here is children classes and for CMA a lot of it is Chinese community children's classes. We have so many Chinese strip malls now, it's astounding. In the suburbs of the SF bay area, the Chinese strip malls probably outnumber any other minority and are almost starting to close in on the regular strip malls.

[Rokto_Obotar]

so are you saying he is most likely an excelent teacher just needs to do the extra things to make money to get by. and is bens school mostly for children or also adult oriented

[kungfuyou]

Tai Mantis Kung-Fu Association
165 Cristich Lane
Campbell California United States
Contact: Paul Eng
(408) 377-0415
Pauleng@cwnet.com

Northern Praying Mantis Kung Fu Academy
Pan Handle Park, Nx 2 Basketball Courts
San Francisco California United States
Contact: Sifu Brendan Lai / Ph: 415. 626-8850
650. 655-8006
eric_ishii@playstation.sony.com

Here's a couple to look into.

[Merryprankster]

You're in San Jose?!

http://www.cungle.com/cungle/training.html

SJSU also has probably the single best Judo Program in the country, outside the Olympic Training Center.