Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[brucereiter]

Here's a fitting metaphor: When I'm reading War and Peace, I don't stop a quarter of the way through the book, and then pick up Anna Karenina in order to get a better understanding of War and PEace. It might improve my understanding of Tolstoy, but War and Peace would still be a mystery to me....

that could be true ... but you might use a dictionary or a thesaurus "in order to get a better understanding" when you are reading war and peace :-)


here is a bit of advice i give to some students :-)
receiving lessons + practice + perseverance + research + patience + practice + experimentation + sharing knowledge + testing theory + more practice! = path to skill

you are going to have to "carve your own path" if some students do not have or want a martial understanding of the material and just want to "collect forms" that is their business ... it is up to you everything you need to gain martial understanding is in my above advice (assuming the instruction is good ... lol ... with master reid i know from my own experience that it is :-) )


best,

b

[Lamassu]

10 years, 20 years...whatever. You mentioned earlier that you've embraced certain Buddhist and Taoist philosophies, so you should know that time is merely a linear measurement of series of events and shouldn't factor into your cma training, especially if you seek out what you said you are in the first place. Personally, I'm not upset or offended if you do decide to leave Shaolin Do. Hate to be brutally honest, but your leaving or staying has no impact on my training or life whatsoever. I'm only trying to give you some advice from my personal experiences. If you feel you should test other waters, then go ahead, it's a free country, but I want to impart to you what my Master told me when I left the North Austin kwoon and moved to Chicago: if you ever decide to come back, you're more than welcome to. You said you respect and admire your Master at your Shaolin Do kwoon, I advise, if you must leave, to do so on good terms with him, because he did, by your own admission, teach you some things of value, and who knows you may find out that all martial art schools are the same in how they're run and decide to return to the SD kwoon. One last bit of advise, be careful not to go from school to school every couple years or so, you know what they say: "Jack of all trades; Master of none".

[Shaolin Wookie]

"Jack of all trades; Master of none".

It's why I don't want to leave....yet am hesitant to stay.....

[BoulderDawg]

I got into MA because I had harmonized my personal philsophy with Taoism and Buddhism...especially Zen...and knew there were physical exercises associated with these philosophies (I weight trained and ran distance....but was looking for something more.....and kung fu seemed like the way). I believe it is the way.

I don't know about your school but at mine they have gone to great lenghts to make sure that everyone knows that the program at CSC is in no way, shape or form associated with the buddhist religion.

Personally I think the two cannot be separated. Afterall it spring from the Shaolin Temple.

[Shaolin Wookie]

Same deal here.....and I agree.

[John Many Jars]

You sound like me a couple years ago.

I really liked the school and the Soards but was getting extrememly frustrated w/ not only being pushed to but the ease in which people would pass to the next belt level. How nobody (fellow students) could show me applications from forms because they didn't really know them and didn't care to learn them. Then listening to the enlarged egos of said people spouting how good our art is and how they could kick anybody's a$$.

It was about that time I found this forum and Bullshido and things went even more downhill. There was the question of lineage, made up forms, how real/alive (for the Bullshidokas) the training is, etc. My training went to hell and I started bringing my bad attitude to class. It was at that point I realized I had to quit the school. Not only for myself but out of respect for the school and what it had given me (there were still a lot of positives).

All said and done, I took about 4 mos. off. During that time I still got together w/ some classmates and found ways to supplement my training so I was getting what I needed to feel happy. I'll tell ya, not being around the frustrations of class really gave me time to put things in perspective.

Going to class is much easier now. Not only do I check my ego at the door but also my expectations. I'm always looking for somebody to work on applications with, spar, or whatever I feel like doing that day during practice hour and I usually can find at least one person that's into it. If not, that's fine. They're there for their own reasons, not mine.

IMVHO, the art offers many things to many people but not everything to every person. I'm lucky enough to have found a way to make it work for me through training outside of class w/ people who have similar goals. You need to decide (which you're doing now) if you can make it work for you. Personally, I woudn't hinge my decision on GMT's visit. GMT isn't the one teaching you every week. It's your instructor. If he's good, he's good. If he's not, he's not.

If you're having doubts about how you're measuring up to other arts, then hook up w/ people outside of your school to see how you compare.

Good luck. =)



On a side note, again, I don't think Master Grooms studied w/ the Soards so any changes he made to forms wouldn't have been from them. =/

[The Xia]

Are you kidding me? You're seriously telling Wookie to wait 10 years before deciding on what he wants to do? I think that's a ridiculous thing for him to do. I think that's the kind of thing that some people think is traditional but isn't and makes a lot of MMA guys laugh at TMA.
[BADJOKE]The only way I’d say ok to dropping 10 years to decide is if Wookie were doing that sensory depravation chamber immortality thing and it actually worked.[/BADJOKE]
Shaolin Wookie confirmed that he has already asked himself the two questions I listed. In my opinion, the best thing for him to do is to honestly answer them and act accordingly. That's my two cents.

[BlueTravesty]

I found an art I loved and wanted to stay with, but the school closed down due to a variety of factors But they say it's better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all. In my case, "her" name was MyJhong, and "she" was a beaut.

[Baqualin]

[QUOTE=The Xia;738644]Are you kidding me? You're seriously telling Wookie to wait 10 years before deciding on what he wants to do?

I thought that was called a bad marriage
BQ

[BlueTravesty]

*rimshot*

[Lamassu]

Nobody here is saying Shaolin Wookie needs to stay with SD for 10 years before he decides if it's his cup of tea, at least, I'm not. I'm in perfect agreement with you that he should venture out, if only to see that despite all the smack talking on this forum from students of other schools, that they're no different from us. What this all boils down to is do we, Shaolin Do, lose a student to, any other cma out there in the U.S. As I said, I don't really care if he stays or goes because that is a personal decision on his part and doesn't really pertain to ANY of us, other than him asking for our imput and advice. Regardless, if I were to commit to a martial art, cma or otherwise, I personally, would stay with it for about a decade only because that's a long enough time to get to the meat of the martial art. Nothing worthwhile is easy and instant gratification is great for coffee and candy, but not for martial arts.

[The Xia]

I thought that was called a bad marriage
BQ

lol!!!!

[kwaichang]

THE GRASS ALWAYS SEEMS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE !!!
I am saying 2 years is not enough time remember the fox that chases 2 rabbits catches neither KC

[The Xia]

Nobody here is saying Shaolin Wookie needs to stay with SD for 10 years before he decides if it's his cup of tea, at least, I'm not. I'm in perfect agreement with you that he should venture out, if only to see that despite all the smack talking on this forum from students of other schools, that they're no different from us. What this all boils down to is do we, Shaolin Do, lose a student to, any other cma out there in the U.S. As I said, I don't really care if he stays or goes because that is a personal decision on his part and doesn't really pertain to ANY of us, other than him asking for our imput and advice. Regardless, if I were to commit to a martial art, cma or otherwise, I personally, would stay with it for about a decade only because that's a long enough time to get to the meat of the martial art. Nothing worthwhile is easy and instant gratification is great for coffee and candy, but not for martial arts.

It seemed to me that KC was saying he should wait until he has 10 years in SD but whatever. I still disagree that roughly a decade in any art should be the key time for deciding on it, I feel that's way too long for all practicality. I agree with Yao Sing that a month should really do it.

THE GRASS ALWAYS SEEMS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE !!!
I am saying 2 years is not enough time remember the fox that chases 2 rabbits catches neither KC

Actually, cross training is a time-honored tradition for martial artists across the globe. Besides, it seems that Wookie isn't just doing this to cross train but that he is at a crossroad where he wants to get to the bottom of what he's doing and see if he wants to take another road or not.
Sidenote-That’s a lot of uses of the word “cross”!

[Lamassu]

A month is enough time?! I don't care what martial art you study, the only way that is ample time to decide if the school you joined is right for you is if you're WAY off track, like say: "I want to focus on takedowns and ground fighting, and I end up in a wushu class!" You're still a white belt in one month's time for pete's sake! The core, the heart of ANY martial art cannot be ascertained in only ONE month's time! The way I see this so far is that KC wants Shaolin Wookie to wait too long and you want him out immedietly. I question your motives. Are you really concerned about Shaolin Wookie's CMA progress, or is it a chance for you to encourage a skeptic to leave Shaolin Do? I have faith in Shaolin Do, so much in fact that I WANT Shaolin Wookie to go out and explore and see for himself that all the other martial art schools out there are no different and NO BETTER than us!