John Allen's Green Dragon School
(Got this off another bb by some people who discuss their direct experiences training there and on the strength programs. I've been in the chinese arts a little more than a year and have learned the continuous palms set and goun gee kuen strength and power set from some of their tapes a friend has, looking back I found the March thread here about 'Green Dragon' and wondered if some people here might find some interest out of it, maybe not.
This guy whose post I have pasted is answering questions from the other posters in that original thread from dragonslist. Had to post it in 3 parts because of length llimit and the old post being "invalid" (too old I guess)---lotus storm.)
Lair of the Green Dragon
part 1
I found this old thread [re: Green Dragon School discussion] and got curious as an ex coworker of mine had used to train at the Green Dragon school so I did a little emailing and Google research, if anybody still cares.
Anyone have any of Green Dragon's videos that they would like to sell? Anyone have their Iron Palm material?
Apparently the herbs necessary for the Iron Palm training are no longer being made available---at last word---through the mail order part of the program. Too many hassles with customs and so on to be able to guarantee prompt delivery and deal with backlogs of orders. Could not find nor haven't seen notice of anybody selling their tapes privately for a long long time.
Their friends at the Chicoine shuai chiao group in Ohio are still going strong. They seem to spend a lot of time criticizing other shuai chiao people, though.
Well in Chicoine's view most of them deserve the criticism! The understanding I have (based on the word of a couple friends who live in that area and have trained under Allen or have friends who have trained at Chicoine's school) is that Chicoine sees it as his duty to uphold the traditions of classical shuai chiao and kung fu training as it was taught to him by the late Grandmaster Tung Shen Chang, who adopted him and taught him material shown to no one else (which, it is said, he can demonstrate), this is a point of honor with him and of respect for his teacher.
For example, in an old issue of IKF (which I don't own, but have seen in Xerox form) a reader had written in questioning Chicoine & Allen's lineages as well as the source of the material they taught; suggesting that proper credit wasn't being given, in that case, to a Master Femon (spelling) Ong. Next issue or so, John Allen replied with a lengthy list of specific examples that pointed out that Ong was *not* responsible for the material in question, as well as some detailed history of his and Chicoine's past dealings with M. Ong as having been students of his (and why they left Ong's organization). Chang of course was one primary source of some of Chicoine's teaching material (also it was pointed out that Chang had had to correct much of what *was* attributable to Ong in order to make it work correctly); Allen had trained under at least 6 major Chinese masters.
And the impression gleaned from that letter, in conjunction with several of the columns written for IKF by both Allen & Chicoine, was that the general "Americanization" of the CMA that has taken place over the years in various ways and for various reasons is not necessarily, in their views and according to some very specific reasons which they have outlined at varous times in the past (including on many of their videotapes), a (as Martha Stewart might put it) "good thing."
I used to see them in the different martial arts magazines Inside Kung Fu, Inside Karate, Black Belt,etc....I thought they were fake because they would advertise every style of kung fu known to man even some very rare styles
It comes up from time to time in various forums that anyone who claims expertise (or "mastery") in a large number of Chinese styles *must* be fraudulent in some way.
But no one questions a pianist who has mastered the works of several different composers or a variety of diverse styles, such as rock, jazz, and classical; or a guitar player who can play rock, country, flamenco, jazz, and fingerpicking style with equal facility.
In what some consider the more "Classically oriented" approaches to learning Chinese forms & styles, a student is properly taught to master the *principles* and fundamental building blocks (stances, punches, kicks, all the blocking techniques and etc) that make up *all* Chinese forms and styles, just as a musician learns scales & riffs & chord progressions. Then the differences, as well as the similarities, between the various styles, is ingrained as the student adds more and more forms from differing (sometimes starkly contrasting) styles to his or her repertoire (when such variety is available in the training). It is "mastery" of all the underlying Chinese fighting & training principles that is of supreme importance in this approach and which provides an important key to understanding such a point of view.
I'm surprised that they don't have a website - in this day and age, a greoup with so high a profile and which is trying to market a product should have one. I believe they are still advertising their tapes in Inside Kung Fu magazine.
They have gone back "underground" as far as the mainstream CMA community is concerned. They place a high premium on training in the "old ways" of the masters who taught prior to 1930, and have the training material at their disposal to do so. In the old schools this kind of demanding work washed out better than 99% of the people who wanted to learn the teachings, and according to those methods you do not "simplify" or "dumb down" the work for the beginners, it is up to them, if they are truly dedicated and interested, to rise to the level of the demands.
Yes, I just checked and their ad is still in the latest (jan 05) "Inside KungFu."
I aquired some Long Fist tapes of thiers, and was shocked at how badly their perfomance was.
Not surprising. They don't do hardly anything the way the mainstream, sport-style schools do. For one thing, they believe (and it is said can demonstrate this) that the material they train on actually develops the chi in the body for application in fighting and power. And they don't maneuver (for example in fighting work) the way most schools do, either. What is seen on the tapes reflects such non-orthodox (but as taught by the older masters) approaches and works, in their paradigm, in application.
Also, what were the specific tapes in question and who were the performers? I've seen roughly 40 or 50 of Green Dragon's tapes (including a couple on which Gene Chicoine makes a guest appearance as lecturer) over the past 16 years, give or take, and can't think of one where there wasn't a good reason (given and explained during the step by step teaching breakdown, btw) for what is seen during the opening demonstration performances (which, iirr, are done at "half to three-quarter speed" most of the time). Their tapes won several awards for excellence from some of the industry magazines & Allen has a reputation for setting, and adherence to, very high standards and being extremely detail-oriented in all areas of his teaching and tapes production. Therefore making the critique cited from the referenced post very puzzling, to say the least, unless it was made mostly from a conceptual standpoint, since their approach in that regard to CMA forms, programs, systems, teaching et al is, as pointed out, hardly conventional from almost any standpoint. Which is of course one more reason why they have generated so much controversy at certain times.
Lair of the Green Dragon (conclusion)
part 3 (of 3)
Bear in mind that Green Dragon provides several tapes covering what they consider to be the 'Fundamentals' of authentic kung fu instruction; well, there's a REASON they do this! If you aren't understanding something on one of the advanced tapes, there's a good chance it's because you're trying to 'fly' before you learned the right way to crawl. Read the tapes brochure THOROUGHLY. Then, reread it. And again, after you've been working on a few forms, or even just a few steps from a form. Repeat as necessary.
Also I found it helped a lot to have Sifu Allen's articles, written for Inside Kung Fu back in the late 80s/early 90s, to use as reference points (one example: to read about what the 'half-second paradigm' means as it relates to true Chinese-style fighting; another: what the significance of closing the centerline is). Probably not everyone who wants to will have those old issues at their disposal, but it's a big plus, in my personal estimation, if you can get them. They were invaluable to me; but it's also true that the content of several of them was somewhat 'controversial' in its impact on the MA community as a whole. You have to keep an open, 'beginner's' mind. It really wasn't until I spent time working on the Shaolin 5-Animals Strength & Health sets that I finally began to fully shake off my biases, about how to train daily & apply strength in unorthodox techniques, etc, biases which had been based on my background in various sports disciplines, for example; who knows what piece of material or part of a lecture will do that for you, if you even need such a conceptual turnaround in the first place.
It helps to have someone to train with. Personally I've tried to find good training partners several times over the years, with little luck---few people ever want to stick with the work, particularly on a daily basis, once they see how much of a commitment is really involved (chi or no chi!) But if you have the option, try to train with someone else at least a couple times a week; yet also keep in mind that there will always be times you're just going to have to crawl up that big slippery wall with your own two hands, no one can do it for you. At many points in some of the strength programs you will have no choice but to face this harsh reality if you want to get through it; but it's all the more rewarding when you do. As Sifu Allen puts it on one of the tapes, these things will always give back to you far more than you ever put into them; and you can't say that about too many things in life (to paraphrase him). And in my experience, this has indeed proven out on several occasions.
I don't own the Travelers Cane, so I can't say anything about it except that it comes out of White Lotus, and White Lotus is one of Sifu Allen's favorite systems; what better recommendation would you need I do own the Continuous Palms, and it's a fantastic piece of material; every other thing you'll ever work on in your kung fu will open up a new angle on what that set contains. Virtually inexhaustible, and a supreme example, as the brochure points out, of true kung fu circularity. Again, you must relate it to the combat applications provided, and these to Chinese fighting principles as a whole.
What other tapes do I own? I honestly think the best way for me to answer that is not with a comprehensive, detailed list but instead to say that every single one I do own has provided something of value that none of the others did---even though I may not have appreciated it when I first started to work on a particular set. What's more interesting to note, from my perspective, is that after you've worked with a nice selection of a broad range of different types of material---some more linear, some more circular, something 'simple' as compared to something more highly complex, a beginner's fighting set of only a couple dozen or so moves as compared to a strength set that may have hundreds of steps, or something almost exclusively 'external' as opposed to something more exclusively 'internal'---you begin to note certain patterns that turn up time and time again; and after you work a while---several months in some cases, a few years in others---the significance of these patterns begins to dawn on you in a way you would NEVER have anticipated: and it's IMMENSELY gratifying when this happens. Just as it's immensely satisfying, even 'enlightening' to a certain degree, the first time you feel the 'chi' in the body begin to stir, and later to move, and later...Well, some things you're going to have to discover for yourself. And the key to this discovery is the fact that it takes work and sacrifice and discipline and commitment of a degree not often encountered in too many places anymore these days; but work, sacrifice, discipline, and commitment that are all well worth it, even when it might not seem that way on a particular day or during a particularly challenging session of arm grabs or Master Kao's stances, to name a couple of examples.
To sum up: no matter which form you happen to be working on or learning at any given time in your training, never forget that it's just one part of a much larger whole; and this whole, in time (plus work plus forms plus repetitions), adds up to something far, far greater than the sum of these individual parts. You'll certainly have good days and bad days; try to keep this in mind when the going gets a little rougher than you may have anticipated; because the pay-off will be far more than you could have anticipated as well.
Hope some small part of this was helpful.
Likewise from this poster.
(Ditto--lotus storm)