Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[Radhnoti]

I don't even know GT's identity, but I also feel he's a class act. My friend that left shaolin-do credits him with stopping the death (well...physical injury anyway) threats and rants from Texas he was getting. GT entered into our situation in a good faith effort to help out, it didn't work out but it's good to know SD has folks like him willing to work for the good of the art.
I met lots of good people in SD...part of the reason I keep an eye on what's going on I suppose.

[Golden Tiger]

Quote:
See you at the gym.....you should be able to figure out who I am.

I am pretty much retired these days but I still am able to keep up with what goes on. And to be honest, I don't have a clue who you are. Welcome to the SD smack-fest though.

[SanHeChuan]

Radhnoti - My friend that left shaolin-do credits him with stopping the death (well...physical injury anyway) threats and rants from Texas he was getting.

Whoa whats this story? Who way threatening him and Why?

[csckungfuguy]

hey godzillakungfu pm me please...id like to know who you are..do you train in denver or boulder?

i train in denver but was most recently a colorado springs student.

see you in class...if your at the female immortal class ill be there tomorrow

[kwaichang]

THE YEAR IS 2036 THIRTY YEARS FROM NOW MANY OF US ARE 65-85 YEARS OLD WE HAVE BEEN TRAINING FOR 30 TO 70 YEARS. MANY OF THE MASTERS OF SD ARE GONE EITHER DEAD OR QUIT. MANY CONTINUE TO TEACH. ONE GROUP HAS SAMS ON ONE HAS SPANDEX, haha, ONE HAS RED KARATE UNIFORMS ANOTHER BLUE ANOTHER JUST A T-SHIRT AND PANTS. WHO KNOWS THAT MANY OF THE TRUTHS OF SD ARE GONE WITH THE MASTERS. THE ORIGIN IS KNOWN TO NO ONE BY THAT TIME. BUT WHO CARES WE ALL TRAIN SOME WIN SOME LOSE SOME DIE WITHOUT KNOWING. IT IS ALL MEANINGLESS. THE ART OF AND HISTORY OF SHAOLIN IS PERPETUATED BY THOSE WHO LOVE THE ART. NOTHING ANYONE SAYS OR DOES CAN CHANGE THAT. WE SHOULD ALL WORK IN UNISON TO PERPETUATE THE POSITIVE QUALITIES OF SHAOLIN WHETHER WITH SD OR WING CHUN OR WHAT EVER ART YOU CHOOSE TO STUDY. WE ALL CLAIM TO TRAIN IN SHAOLIN BUT MANY ARE WRAPPED UP IN THE EGO OF RIGHT AND WRONG WHEN ALL ANYONE IS DOING IS HURTING SHAOLIN AS A WHOLE. jUST TRAIN AND RESPECT ALL SOON IN THE BLINKING OF AN EYE IT WILL ALL BE OVER WITH THE EGOS AND STORIES JUST A BLURR OF A MEMORY. IT CANT BE STOPPED THE LOVE OF THE SHAOLIN WAY. SO THERE HOW SAD IT ALL IS. KC

[Starchaser107]

Word Kwaichang.

True thing

[BM2]

KC,
Four words:
TURN OFF CAPS LOCK

[godzillakungfu]

Ahhh my eye my eyes.


Sorry I'm not in Denver CSCkungfuguy. If you talk to me you could get in trouble.

[Judge Pen]

KC, great post. History will erode the ego and all that is left is what has been passed down from teacher to student. The petty debates of today will be immaterial tomorrow (just has they should be immaterial today).

[kwaichang]

Oops sorry for the cap locks but did it for emphasis I thought I should BOLD it but didnt KC

[tattooedmonk]

East vs. West= ego and isolationism
Lex vs. Tenn= ego, misunderstanding concerning origin of some forms,ego
Lex vs. Atl= ego, uniforms, ego, feeling of no respect, ego
Brother vs. brother= ego, tournament gone wild,deception,ego

See, you were just asking the wrong people

actually I learned a great deal of my info from GMT himself. as well as others who will remain nameless... I was friends with him for about 10+ years and a student in the csc for 15+.

all the stories change from time to time and from person to person....it is true about the fact that Sin& Hiang,(play on words Sin is Yin & Hiang is Yang), decided to bury the hatchet and it is true that the masters and senior masters have tried many times to unite.

the big issue,still ,is the way in which the Soards went about starting their own organization.I believe that the east coast group still feels betrayed and that they do not live up to the code of Shaolin...IMO I maybe wrong

funny thing is that this crap has been going on in Shaolin for over 1500 years and there is no end in sight ..if there was we could get back to what is most important...THE ART!!

[Radhnoti]

TTM - "...I believe that the east coast group still feels betrayed and that they do not live up to the code of Shaolin..."

When you say "they" do you mean the Soards or the east coast group (which I assume means Lexington)?
Also, were you taught a code beyond "honor your teachers" when you mention code of Shaolin?

SanHeChuan- "Whoa whats this story? Who way threatening him and Why?"

The numbers were from Texas, some actually from contact numbers for a school in Texas. LOTS of calls and hang ups...which were pretty juvenille. A couple of, "I'm going to get you Motherwhatever." One guy left a LONG rant about how someday he would come to understand all the sacrifices GM Sin had made and he'd be sorry. As far as I know he (my friend) never said a bad word about GM Sin. If it was just dealing with GM Sin I'm fairly positive he'd still be in the system. He made a decision to switch away from SD...well...there were lots of reasons. The blackbelts of my school met and decided to throw out a 2nd black who VERY actively pursued an affair with a white belt. Our actions were entirely reactionary, as the 2nd black actually had been served with a restraining order by the white belt and her family...culminating in the local police coming to the school and actually leading him away. Luckily, only one kid saw that particular fiasco... We asked him to go, he started studying under a (then new) SD Master in another town. Next thing we know we're being accused of studying with Master Hiang...and all kinds of good ideas my friend had...bringing in outside instructors for a night per week...doing demos with other schools...even going and learning NON-SD material from one GM Sin's original students...were ordered to stop. No one asks my instructor's side to anything, I assume because our one time colleague had the ear of a guy who took direct lessons from the guy passing down all the edicts. I saw an e-mail where our school was ordered to begin attending seminars and tournaments more frequently. I suppose it was really over (though I didn't know it at the time...involving GT shortly after) when my instructor's teacher sent him an e-mail chastising him and ending with something like, "Honor is something you carry in your heart, not a mask you put when it suits you."
From that time my friend stopped teaching the SD material, switching from a forms focus to sparring/combos/situational awareness/self defense type stuff. The questionable thing my friend did, I thought at the time, was to not announce to any higher ups that he'd decided to quit. He kept saying he didn't feel like dealing with the harrassment that was sure to follow...and he was correct on that count. It could also have been that he'd not entirely made up his mind to leave when he stopped with the SD material, he'd always been a "company man" so to speak and he'd spent 20(?) or so years in SD and was a 3rd black. He was the most pro-GM Sin and SD guy you'd hope to meet. So, he did his own thing, until the inevitable occured and some event he had posted on his website raised someone's ire and he was ordered not to do it. He let them know he wasn't in SD anymore and hadn't taught it for months and months, and the phone calls/e-mails and smearing via mutual contacts started. GT came aboard about the time the worst of the harrassment was hitting and caught some flak from my friends in the school who thought he was another critic from SD. GT said he'd look into the harrassment from TX and the calls/e-mails ended overnight. Again, I thank him for that. I wish I'd never gotten him involved in retrospect though, at the time I thought I was helping but it really was probably just a waste of his time...and I'm afraid he probably got a distorted look at some of the best people I know.

A postscript to all this. I know a fellow who recently spoke (maybe studied a bit) with a new instructor in a nearby town. He mentioned my friends name and was told that my friend had been kicked out of the system for studying with Hiang and teaching SD material via the internet. I asked my friend about this and he said, "Yeah, a few months after I told them I was quitting they sent me a letter saying I was thrown out and was forbidden to teach any shaolin-do material and couldn't claim any rank in SD."
So, you can't quit, you're fired!

Anyway, my friend is doing fine. He's worked out his own system that he says sticks together really well...he's been refining it for a few years now I suppose. I'm starting my son in his classes this Tues. and plan to join myself to see what it's like. He's the best teacher I had and I have no reservations about putting my son into any class he's running. He teaches in 4 or 5 different towns with small (8-10ish) but consistent numbers in each town, and it's looking like he'll be teaching a HR class for one of the local colleges soon. He's been granted "instructor" status at a couple of other schools in the area and he's continually interacting with other schools and teachers. I don't know if the history with and nature of shaolin-do will ever allow him interaction with those schools and people again, which is a shame, since it could have all gone so differently. But, ultimately, no one was hurt and the only negative was the bad feelings left behind as evidenced by the fact that he's still badmouthed by SD teachers.
The guy we kicked out is now the shaolin-do representative in my home town, which is a shame...that girl was not the first incident of inappropriate behavior we ran across with him.

Edited a bit to remove some specificity of identity...

[tattooedmonk]

when I said "they " I meant the Soards...the code of honor your teachers/ masters ...that is part of I was refering to..it all stems from that ....and yes I was taught a code in addition to this...if you do not mind me asking .....why do you want to know??

[Radhnoti]

Well, I never learned an "official" code. I had the SDA training manual, which had "open letters" from Snr. Mstr. Leonard on general rules and preferred attitudes, but nothing codified.
Was this something short enough to be repeated in class? Just curious about the different ways things were done, no offense intended.
Honestly, I feel somewhat intrusive on this thread anymore...I'm not part of the system, but checking KFO (that's showing how long I've been doing it, from back when it was kungfuonline instead of kungfumagazine) to see the latest shaolin-do thread is a bit of a habit now.

[Lokhopkuen]

So I read this whole thread and for me the same question persists.

Is Shaolin Do For Real?