Originally Posted by onyomi
HAHAHAHAHAHA! A little touchy are we?
Why don't you come show me where I'm wrong? The thing is, I actually DO know a pretty good amount about a number of the CMAs Shaolin-do claims to teach, having studied with traditional teachers in Taiwan for years, and I'm here to tell you it's all a huge scam. The whole lineage is obviously completely fake. He just learned a bit here and there from movies, videos, books, etc.
The forms, such as the jian or the mantis I've seen aren't poor in the sense that the person needs more practice or that they're kind of sloppy. Rather, the instruction is clearly flawed to begin with. The jian is simply not used in that way AT ALL. No traditional teacher would tell you to use it that way, whether they do a traditional style or even modern Wushu.
Second, I know a thing or two about Mantis, and I don't care whether Sin is fooling around or what, but the way he's using the mantis hand reflects a total lack of undertanding in regards to how it is actually used. It is NEVER just held rigidly like that while the arms swing around. The fingers always move in the application of gou, diao, ding or any of the other applications of the signature mantis hand. For someone to use it like that even in a brief, casual demonstration, shows that their knowledge of Mantis can only come from sources like books and movies.
Then there's the whole issue of intellectual honesty, which I'm a bit of a stickler about for some reason...
I don't like to be hyper-critical when I know there are probably lots of perfectly nice, decent people who put lots of effort into Shaolin-do and get decent benefits. The problem is the whole thing is based on a scam, taking advantage of the fact that most westerners don't know what real CMA is supposed to be like. I guarantee you if you go to Taiwan or Hong Kong and find a traditional master of any of the styles Shaolin-do claims to teach and then get him to give you his honest opinion of any SD video clip of said style, he will tell you it is fake. (Note, you'd probably have to do it in a discrete manner, perhaps without telling said teacher that you practice SD, as most Chinese will not tell you to your face they think what you're doing is fake, for fear of causing a loss of face.)
I also just don't understand the people who are like "yeah, Sin probably made up some of his history, but so what? He can fight. I can learn to fight from him. It's fun. What's the big deal?"
The big deal is intellectual honesty. We don't tolerate people putting fake jobs and credentials on their resume when looking for an employee and will fire them immediately for such an infraction. Why should we tolerate MA teachers fabricating their lineages and history?