Ba-qua question

[Currahee]

I've always wanted to learn this system.

There is a new school in town,when I asked by e-mail about the instructor's lineage he told me......

"First of all thank you for calling me. The main root style of Chinese Gung
Fu that I teach is Pa Kwa Chang, but I have also combined many other
styles into the system such as Kali, Karate and Kick Boxing. With Chinese
Gung Fu you will learn basic kicks, blocks, strikes, movements and
stances. There is a very strong emphasis on self-defense "that actually
works". Sparring is an essential part of training as well as weapons.
Along the way you will learn many forms and philosophies. And when you
become an advanced practitioner you will learn the ten main animal styles.
You will also be provided with the opportunity to compete in tournaments
or possibly participate in demonstrations"


I asked him about his lineage because alarm bells went up when I found out he's still into Tae-kwon-do,when I asked him about lineage his reply was....




"I've been actively training in the martial arts for 20 years, 10 of which
have been in Chinese Gung Fu. My instructor is Master James Hogwood and
his instructor is Master Timothy Warfield and his instructor was from
China.

Truly I don't put much emphasis on lineage or who someone has trained with
because what matters most is if something is skilled enough to teach you
something you don't know. I am not one that tries to impress with my
resume, but I do feel as if I have a great deal of knowledge and skill to
pass on."



I do put emphasis on lineage because I've seen to many frauds,not knowing much about Ba-qua I looked up his teacher's teacher

http://www.warfieldmartialarts.com/index.cfm?page=4

I could find no link to this guy's Ba-qua teacher let alone to China,I'm not trying to give these guys a bad rap so I came here with this question.

Are these guys legit??

Thanks for any help,I do want to find a real teacher,not one that teaches 20 arts and ba-qua just to make money off the people that like kung-fu but don't know any better

[taai gihk yahn]

Warfield's bio on his website reads like a grocery list of martial arts cliche's; he also gives a non-Chinese guy as his pa kua instructor, seemingly in contradiction to what they guy you spoke to said (personally, to me, the "nameless Chinese teacher" bit is a big BS flag...)

induction into MA halls of fame is a total scam, you send them money, you get inducted, that's it - it's hardly Cooperstown

but I suppose that if you wanted to test him, you could ask him if his pa kua is Yin Fu or Cheng Ting Hua lineage - if he has no idea what you are talking about, that might be a good indicator of the relative authenticity of his background (I mean, there are certainly other branches, but those are the main two, anyone who has studied pa qua seriously would know that);

overall, sounds dubious - I mean, the guy's skills might be fine, but it sounds like he's playing the gung fu angle to get people interested - probably he's got a lot of TKD competition locally, thinks this will make him stand out, and figures most people won't question / call him on his BS (I mean, pa qua, as classically taught, is a pretty complete, and reasonably functional system - not one that would really need much "combining" with anything, not if you are going for the classical TCMA approach)

and 10 years of pa kua ain't much to go on anyway...should take you about that long to get the system, but I don't know about teaching it...

[TenTigers]

run.
besides, that's a stupid name for a Kung-Fu school.