The Fajin Project on Facebook

There's an animated Chinese Martial Arts group on Facebook group called "The Fajin Project", which is devoted to debunking fraudulent claims by martial artists who demonstrate their "superpowers" (aka "Woo"). Most of this revolves around folks who do Tai Chi or some other Internal Martial Art.

There were these types of discussions here, once upon a time. The spirit of that energy is in The Fajin Project. I found it to be particularly interesting, because the big debate on this forum for many years was TMA vs. MMA, and the idea of static vs dynamic resistance training. But The Fajin Project's focus has been more on the idea of "what are you claiming"?

People are obviously free to do what they want, and with something like Chinese martial arts, which is almost completely unregulated, it is easy to make very wild claims as a marketing tactic and not face much consequence, if you stay in a bubble. But the moment a camera captures you, and it's on the web, it's fair game.

You remember Bullshido? It's basically a Bullshido for Chinese Martial Arts. But Bullshido was a little more mean spirited, in that, they would almost randomly pick fights with martial arts schools to test their mettle. The Fajin Project is not quite like that. If you make a video with questionable claims, such as, claiming that your Tai Chi skill is so powerful that you can uproot someone with jalapeños (I'm not kidding), you will be asked to account for that.

I asked in a thread something like, "How is this stuff still happening" (referring to wild Kung-Fu claims, and people falling for them). A response was something to the effect of, "There will always be suckers, and people who try to take advantage of suckers - that will never go away".

In a way, I see this as a public service. It makes me wonder if it makes sense for KFM to have a whole separate category called something like, "Common Misunderstandings in Chinese Martial Arts"? I know you'd be able to find these instances if you search the site, but instead of that, what about hitting it head on, and address it right off the top, before it becomes an issue? It could be a community type of project, where Kung-Fu folks from all over could contribute to.

Just a thought, for bringing Kung-Fu folks back together, slowly, over here.

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Originally Posted by yutyeesam

There's an animated Chinese Martial Arts group on Facebook group called "The Fajin Project", which is devoted to debunking fraudulent claims by martial artists who demonstrate their "superpowers" (aka "Woo"). Most of this revolves around folks who do Tai Chi or some other Internal Martial Art.

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The r/kungfu and r/taijiquan groups on reddit are much more decentralized because there is no active moderator like here, so there's a lot more boasting and debunking of it, if that's what interests you...

Thanks for the rec.
Seems a bit too free-formish?

I like the categorizations here.

But, I'm glad it exists, thanks for pointing me to it.

I looked at the Fajin Project forum and saw some positive posts as well ask skeptics. I think some skepticism is good as a legit practitioner or art should be able to stand up to criticism.

I have a background in CLF, some experience with Ba Gua Zhang, Silat, and am currently interested in the martial essence of Tai Chi Chuan as well as health. I have read much of the Tai Chi classics, Yang Family 'secret' transmissions, etc. I practice the 24 form so far. It's interesting to try to piece together the real original martial essence of Tai Chi Chuan that's unknown by most practitioners.